I heart OBJ

[jeff prince]

 

[gmm18]

How did you do this?

Google Earth --> to Sketch-up  --> to Vectorworks?

[jeff prince]

33 minutes ago, gmm18 said:

How did you do this?

Google Earth --> to Sketch-up  --> to Vectorworks?

Flew a drone around an existing building

Took a bunch of photos

had the photos stitched into a photo textured 3D model in OBJ format

imported into Vectorworks (which required no modification to display correctly)

[jeff prince]

I actually did the entire 45 acre site as well.  Initially just to get a nice aerial photo to work with, but then to generate a quick study model.

[gmm18]

Awesome. Need to get drone now. 

[jeff prince]

7 minutes ago, gmm18 said:

Awesome. Need to get drone now. 

I would advise getting a really cheap toy one and learn how to fly.  I started on a $30 Hubsan almost 2 years ago.  I probably had 100 hours of practice manually controlling it before I got a more capable unit.  If you don’t know DSLR photography, master that first too before buying a high quality drone.  There’s a lot going on to get good photos... let alone worrying about the fact that your camera now flies :)

[mjm]

this is really really cool.

 

And but: "had the photos stitched into a photo textured 3D model in OBJ format"

How exactly was that accomplished?

Edited September 28, 2018 by mjm
appended the question

[jeff prince]

1 minute ago, mjm said:

this is really really cool.

 

And but: "had the photos stitched into a photo textured 3D model in OBJ format"

How exactly was that accomplished?

 

There are a multitude of softwares and online service providers that specialize in this.  A few solutions ranging from basic to advanced... Drone Deploy, AutoDesk Recap, Carlson Software, etc.  Vectorworks has something thru Service Select (which I guess I can’t use since I’m abroad), but I saw their video on point clouds so I assume it does something similar.

[mjm]

Just now, jeff prince said:

 

There are a multitude of softwares and online service providers that specialize in this.  A few solutions ranging from basic to advanced... Drone Deploy, AutoDesk Recap, Carlson Software, etc.  Vectorworks has something thru Service Select (which I guess I can’t use since I’m abroad), but I saw their video on point clouds so I assume it does something similar.

Cool. And which did you deploy in this instance? 

[J. Wallace]

Fantastic post @jeff prince .I don't have a drone but often hire one for mainly taking elevation data. I recieve shape file with one foot contours that  is easily used to create a site model, high res images and obj object as you've shown. Extremely helpful technology.

 

[jeff prince]

Just now, mjm said:

Cool. And which did you deploy in this instance? 

 

I used a 14 day trial of Drone Deploy.  I was bummed I didn’t have time or weather to do more.  These flights had to be done before 11am due to the temp rising above 100 degrees.  My drone and iPad tend to overheat above that 😞. 12:30 probably would have produced better results for where I am.  I’ll never be able to shoot on June 21 at solar noon 😞

 

 

[mjm]

5 minutes ago, jeff prince said:

 

I used a 14 day trial of Drone Deploy.  I was bummed I didn’t have time or weather to do more.  These flights had to be done before 11am due to the temp rising above 100 degrees.  My drone and iPad tend to overheat above that 😞. 12:30 probably would have produced better results for where I am.  I’ll never be able to shoot on June 21 at solar noon 😞

 

 

Fabulous. What a great solution.

[jeff prince]

9 minutes ago, J. Wallace said:

Fantastic post @jeff prince .I don't have a drone but often hire one for mainly taking elevation data. I recieve shape file with one foot contours that  is easily used to create a site model, high res images and obj object as you've shown. Extremely helpful technology.

 

Very nice!  It’s amazing what you can accomplish with the technology once you have a mastery of all the other stuff required...Photography, Geography, and flying.  Survey grade drone work is pretty expensive from a time/ground station/software perspective.  What I did was more recreation/study model grade.  When I compared the resulting surface to the points collected by our survey crew, there were differences as you would expect when I’m using a camera and they are using a total station 🙂. I have an Inspire now with a full frame camera, so I can’t wait until it cools down enough to put that camera up in the air.

[jeff prince]

29 minutes ago, mjm said:

Fabulous. What a great solution.

@J. Wallace 

 

Since you guys seem into it, I have a few drone videos on my youtube channel and below are a few of the unedited photos I have taken.  I'm still trying to get good at it, but it's fun trying.  It's really hard taking nice photos when your sensor is smaller than a postage stamp and your tripod is flying 🙂

 

 

Edited September 28, 2018 by jeff prince

[mjm]

And those pix are awesome. The camel shadow one esp, tho you probably aren't going to point-cloud them.

[jeff prince]

7 minutes ago, mjm said:

And those pix are awesome. The camel shadow one esp, tho you probably aren't going to point-cloud them.

Thanks, glad you like them.  I was going to try to photomodel the water towers in the last photo, but I ran out of time with the software.  It will be interesting to see how it resolves the shapes involved seeing as they are spheres supported by a column tapered to a sharp point.

[jeff prince]

For those interested, I have combined my VW site model generated from survey data with the 3D model generated from aerial photographic survey.  Of the images attached, "3 model and aerial" really shows the level of accuracy when you look at the parking lot at the right side of the stadium.  Those little islands in a sea of green are cars picked up by the drone that were not accounted for by the survey crew.  The same is noticed with vegetation and a building excavation that began after the survey crew had visited the site.  It's really pretty amazing how close things are.

 

Green = VW site model, Ghost = Drone generated model

 

Drone generated model

 

Green = VW site model, photo model by drone poking thru.  Note parking lots and footing of buildings as they relate to the largely flat property with photo textured cars, vegetation, and buildings poking thru with a fair degree of accuracy.

 

Drone model with 3D contours from VW site model shown in white.

Edited October 8, 2018 by jeff prince

[jeff prince]

Some rough cut of aerial videography with 3D modeling.  

 

[mjm]

Dang Jeff. That's outstanding.

[jeff prince]

9 hours ago, mjm said:

Dang Jeff. That's outstanding.

Thanks.  Glad you liked it.

[EAlexander]

Great work Jeff! 

[jeff prince]

3 hours ago, EAlexander said:

Great work Jeff! 

Thanks for the kind words.  Hopefully I'll have something more interesting to share in the coming weeks 🙂

[mjm]

@jeff prince - one of the cool things about your project is your willingness to show us the development over time of the project. So very helpful.

[jeff prince]

12 hours ago, mjm said:

@jeff prince - one of the cool things about your project is your willingness to show us the development over time of the project. So very helpful.

 

That's actually not a bad idea.  I should start a thread dedicated to the actual project instead of this drone stuff.   This is my first actual vectorworks project with the past year being spent on limited experiments with the key 3D tools to see if this would even be feasible.  I've haven't even composed a detail or a sheet in the software yet 🙂

[jeff prince]

@mjm

I never needed up doing that stadium in VW due to time constraint.

However, here's something you all might enjoy following...