The PhotoMesh Cloud Processing (PCP) service processes aerial photos into 3D models and true orthophoto, and then publishes them to SkylineCloud Server, for viewing and analyzing in one of Skyline’s viewers (TerraExplorer for Desktop / TerraExplorer for Web / TerraExplorer for Mobile) or other 2D and 3D geospatial products.
Each PCP package defines a bank of gigapixel credits and sets a limit on the number of concurrent users who can view your projects outputs simultaneously. The gigapixel credits are applied towards the building of your PhotoMesh projects based on the number of pixels in the photos you upload. Within a single project, multiple output types can be created using the same gigapixel credits. The number of concurrent users defined is shared by all projects created under your package.
In this article:
- Input Requirements
- Step 1: Create a New Project and Add Photos
- Step 2: Set Project Properties and Output Options
Input Requirements
| Supported photo formats | Jpeg and Tiff |
| Required photo/camera information | Photo location (GPS), stored in the Exif or Tiff tags, is required. Camera orientation is optional, but it is recommended to include this information in OPK (Omega, Phi, Kappa) values. |
| Frame size | No limit |
| Bands | PCP currently supports RGB bands |
| Minimum number of photos per project | 15 |
| Maximum number of photos per project | 5000 |
| Recommended overlap | For best 3D model production, your subjects should be photographed from multiple overlapping viewpoints (66%). Each point should be visible from at least 3 cameras. In structured aerial photography, the recommended overlap in direction of flight (forward overlap) should be 70% or higher, and the overlap between neighboring rows (side overlap) should be 50% or higher. |
| Altitude values | The system requires altitude values above mean sea level in Geoid coordinate system. Providing other altitude values, e.g., ellipsoid values or relative to the ground may result in a vertical shift of the model. |
Step 1: Create a New Project and Add Photos
- In your Internet browser, navigate to your SkylineCloud Account page. If not already logged in, enter your user name and password, and click Login.
- Select the Cloud Processing tab, and click New Project.
- Type the name of the project (max 32 characters). Only English letters, digits, underscores and hyphens are allowed.
- Click Select Photos, and then browse to your photos or folders of photos. For optimal performance, photographs should be divided into folders based on camera type or capture date/time. If you are adding a folder with sub-folders, all photos in these folders are added.
Note: You can also drag and drop your photos from your File Explorer.
The following information is displayed: number of photos, total gigapixels and gigabytes of all photos added to this project, number of gigapixel remaining in your package. Your gigapixel credit bank will be charged after the photos are uploaded successfully to SkylineCloud. - Click Next to define the project's properties and output options.
Step 2: Set Project Properties and Output Options
- Define your input:
Select your GPS accuracy, i.e., the accuracy level of the georeferenced information (X, Y, Altitude) stored in your photo tags. You can choose between Standard GPS system and GPS correction technologies such as Post-Processed Kinematic (PPK) or Real-Time Kinematic (RTK). - Select your Captured Scene based on your dataset and project scale:
- Select Wide Area Mapping for datasets that contain oblique photos or large frames, or cover a large geographic area.
- Select Close Range Object for small scale projects covering an object of interest such as a cell tower or a building at high resolution (<1cm per pixel). This option is recommended for close-range drones and ground level cameras that are close to the object of interest with photo angles that include horizontal or above the horizon views.
- Select the required outputs:
- 3D Mapping – Generate a 3D mesh model that can be viewed in many 3D viewers including Skyline’s TerraExplorer, Cesium, Esri and more.
- True Orthophoto – Generate a 2D raster layer that can be viewed in most GIS and mapping viewers.
- Set access to your project's output:
- Only Me – Only you will have access to your project's outputs (after logging in to your SkylineCloud account).
- Everyone – Anyone with the link will have view access to the project's outputs.
Note: The number of users who can view your project simultaneously is limited by the number of concurrent users defined in your package. This limit is defined for all projects under the same SkylineCloud package. You can view your package's concurrent users limit, on your SkylineCloud Account page, on the row of the Cloud Hosting product.
- Click Start to start uploading the photos to the cloud storage.