Can anyone suggest a reliable method for 3d scans of venues?

[Claes Lundstrom]

7 hours ago, Ian M. said:

Have tried Polycam, 3dScanner, and Canvas on my iPhone 12 Pro.

Canvas has a service that will generate a variety of CAD formats...for a fee. I recall the Revit file being the most useful, but it still took work to make it a Vectorworks project.

 

Polycam has a "Pro" subscription that allows exporting files in a variety of mesh and point cloud files, but you have to do your own work to turn it into CAD.

 

3dscanner is free and allows exporting a wide variety of file types, so, being cheap, I use it the most, but I definitely have not worked out a good workflow for creating something usable. I would be interested in hearing which of the many file formats the Vectorworks community finds the easiest to work with?

 

Scaniverse remains my absolute favorite as mentioned above in this thread, it's free, it supports both Ladar and Photogrammetry scanning, and it supports direct export of several of file formats that can be imported into VW including point clouds (for example used in terrain models) as well as fully textured models. It has also evolved quickly over time and the developer seems very eager to push it forward. It typically imports well into other programs, such as various rendering programs, Adobe Aero (both for iPhone and Mac), even Photoshop (the picture was scanned at an electric car show last week. A bit sloppy, yes, but I probably only spent ten seconds doing it, and only one run.

[Benson Shaw]

The updated Vectorworks photogrammetry feature actually works pretty well, very well compared to the earlier version (IMHO). Apparently it is based on Apple's API.

Load your photos to your vwx Cloud Services and follow the prompts.  Results return quickly as several files:

• USDZ -  opens in Apple Preview (and probably many others) as a rotatable 3d image. These are rather heavy files.  Several hundred mb.
• Several PNG files - I believe these are images for texture on the USDZ
• OBJ  -  imports to vwx as 3d Mesh
• MTL -  vwx texture file built into the obj Mesh.  No need to import it separately as a new texture.  mtl is acronym for material, but vwx treats it as a texture.  The obj import to vwx automatically adds a texture to the Resource Mgr, but does not add/create a vwx material.  As far as I can tell.

I'm using an older iPhone, no Lidar.  I wonder if the lidar photos would also process to return a point cloud.

 

Heres a recent sample of a concrete stair.  It melts in the middle because I was so intent on the sidewalls that I forgot to shoot straight up the middle.

 

-B

 

 

[Jeff Prince]

@Benson Shawwell taken photos usually produce a more accurate model and point cloud than iPhone based lidar.  It turns out, you don't need lidar to get very good results if you use the correct photogrammetry software.

[bcd]

55 minutes ago, jeff prince said:

well taken photos usually produce a more accurate model and point cloud than iPhone based lidar.  It turns out, you don't need lidar to get very good results if you use the correct photogrammetry software.

HI Jeff,

I'm interested in why you say this - don't the 3d scans with Lidar combine both photogrammetry & Lidar or am I missing something?

[Jeff Prince]

52 minutes ago, bcd said:

HI Jeff,

I'm interested in why you say this - don't the 3d scans with Lidar combine both photogrammetry & Lidar or am I missing something?

Because photogrammetry has been demonstrated to be more accurate than iPhone LiDAR.

[Benson Shaw]

I’m trying to find a successful path with least effort. Older phone, fewest photos, no extra apps . . .   Previous trials with the vwx processing were all failures. Some success with current version is encouraging. Obviously attention during the shoot is required for best results. 
 

My question was prompted by the new Apple promotions for their lidar features (eg 3d photogram of chair in sales room brought into interior design model). Has anyone here compared iphone lidar to not lidar images in the vwx photogrammetry offering? 

@jeff prince ‘s many wonderful examples and his comment from a year ago gave some inspiration to experiment.  I think “wave my iphone” is probably metaphorical, and not incompatible with “well taken photos”.  Phone cameras compensate very well for lots of waving around error. 
 

-B

 

[Jeff Prince]

53 minutes ago, Benson Shaw said:

 I think “wave my iphone” is probably metaphorical, and not incompatible with “well taken photos”.  Phone cameras compensate very well for lots of waving around error. 

I think the whole LiDAR vs Photogrammetry thing is a moving target in terms of which is better.

 

The hardware and software is in constant refinement, but Photogrammetry with good photos and great software seems to be the current leader in accuracy at the expense of speed and cost.  LiDAR on the phone is fast and inexpensive at the expense of accuracy.

 

Use case governs which is s better choice.  If I’m interested in creating models of boulders, LiDAR is the go to.  If I need to capture a site, it’s photogrammetry.  Floor plan of an existing structure is now in the Nomad with LiDAR domain it would seem after a recent test.

 

lidar is still waving the phone around while photogrammetry uses a bit more finesse and thought.

[Tom W.]

On 12/16/2022 at 8:57 AM, Claes Lundstrom said:

Here is a compilation of about 25 scans direct imported into VW, and used for documenting a building in combination with the technical drawings (not shown here). The scanner used was an iPhone 13 Pro equipped with the freeware Scaniverse. The resulting file is about 600 Megs.

 

 

@Claes Lundstrom did you stitch these 25 scans together by eye or is there a more precise method for aligning them within VW?

thanks

[Claes Lundstrom]

10 hours ago, Tom W. said:

@Claes Lundstrom did you stitch these 25 scans together by eye or is there a more precise method for aligning them within VW?

thanks

It was a combination of drawings, laser measurements, and scans, where I tried to merge them into one unit. The house was built in 1939, where architects did not have VW to work with, and nothing was done in 3D, so even the drawings had to be cross checked against one another. The house also gradually changed over the years. As you can see there are a lot of factors that had to be merged into one 3D model. 

 

I have to say that I have made good use of these scans since my posting. I used it for locating sewage pipes in the house as it is time to reline them in the basement. For some reason we could not find the original drawings, but using combinations of scans from all seven stories, I was able to generate a good picture where everything was. 

 

Another example was a leak in a terrace, where a joint turned out to be the problem. I could place a scan of the terrace on top of the plan drawing below and it became obvious what the problem was. I even double-checked the measurement with a Leica laser, and the scan was 14 mm off vs the laser scan over 6.225 meters.

 

[Peter Neufeld.]

Hello,

I've been investigating this recently and just came across this thread. As we all know getting 'As-Built' 3D models is the holy grail. I recently spoke to a 3D scanning company based in Australia who said it would take maybe a day to scan for example, a 3000 seat auditorium. Including the person and the scanner that would cost AUS $2200 per day.

This particular company said they could then model everything in Autocad or Revit or Sketch Up. They added that to build a model of this 3000 seater depending on detail (how long is a piece of string?!) would cost between AUS $3000-$5000. I expect they farm this out to someone in another country. At least you would have the Point Cloud to check for accuracy afterwards and I am sure there'd be a fair bit of tidying up to do. Certainly for the level of complexity that Mark's example shows, quite a lot of extra work.

 

The point is, forget ACAD or Revit, the best thing about this is that when importing Sketch Up models, vertical and horizontal objects get converted to Vectorworks native architectural objects (walls and floors). From the Help:  "When selected, architectural objects in Vectorworks are created from SketchUp faces that are not contained in SketchUp groups of components". You obviously don't necessarily want rigging beams etc coming in as floors but that would entail a discussion before the work was done.

In effect this means that we can get Vectorworks models from third parties! I am no longer a practitioner so I have not done this in practise but I thought I'd just mention it.

 

Cheers,

Peter

 

PS. The other point is that this should be the venue's responsibility and cost and not the player.

Edited July 9, 2023 by Peter Neufeld.
Added PS