What's New In PhotoModeler

PhotoModeler 2010 and PhotoModeler Scanner 2010 were released Oct. 28th, 2010 and the changes are impressive!

• New Major Features
• Exceptional Improved Speed
• Other Interesting Features

The 2011 release is a upgrade to 2010 with fixes and small improvements.

Major New Features introduced with 2010

SmartMatch - automation for non-targeted images

• SmartMatch brings automation to create 3d data from every-day images.
• SmartMatch searches out natural feature points in images, matches them between photos, and generates 3d xyz points automatically. It is as simple as loading your photos and pressing “Go”.
• The best way to understand SmartMatch is to watch the SmartMatch Introduction Video or one of the SmartMatch tutorials.
• For those familiar with PhotoModeler’s coded targets and automated coded target projects, you can think of SmartMatch as automation for photos without targets. SmartMatch creates SmartPoints as a replacement for coded targets in certain scenes. Think of the time that you can save - not having to place targets in your scene. Or consider the ability to work on projects automatically where the targets needed would be too large or difficult to place.
• SmartMatch is included at no cost with all PhotoModeler Scanner licenses.

Geographic coordinate systems are now understood here!

• Do you have external 2D or 3D coordinates from traditional survey, from GPS, or from Google Earth (or similar)?  PhotoModeler 2010 now has full understanding and conversion capabilities for datums, geoids, geo-coordinate systems, lat/long, UTM, state-plane, etc.
• This new capability is available in the new External Geometry Explorer
• Geo multi-point affine and a later release will support control points as geo coordinates as well
• Ortho-photos can be created as GeoTIFFs
• A World file with geo info can be exported for projects and ortho-photos

Project Review and Status pane

The speed improvements are amazing in themselves and more than enough reason for most to upgrade to or to buy PhotoModeler 2010, but we have also changed some work flows for greater overall work efficiency.

• The project review pane displays information about the project’s quality and status.  This information updates in real-time as the project is modified.  Important aspects of a project (e.g. number of referenced points, number of photos points are referenced on, high residuals) are reviewed and overall status is displayed either on the status bar or in the Project Review pane.
• In the Project Review pane you can study each item that needs improvement.
• The type of project can be set so that review thresholds are different depending on if you are doing an inverse camera project, a dsm project, or a high accuracy all-sub-pixel target project, etc.

All new External Geometry Explorer (EGE)

This new view pane consolidates the scale/rotate/translate coordinate system setup with control points, and multi-point affine. Brand new capabilities are multiple scales, check distances, check points and multi-point affine. The EGE gives the user control over which coordinate system is active, checks for conflicting coordinate definition types, highlights the groups or individual of objects used for the coordinate definition in photos, tables and 3d viewers, and provides control over the project’s display units. The EGE is one central location for:

• Existing capabilities in the EGE: scale / rotate / translate - coordinate system setup; project units; control point import and marking; and external 3D model import and pinning
• New capabilities in the EGE: multiple scales; check distances (get a report of how project distances compare to known distances); check points (get a report of how project XYZ locations compare to known locations); multi-point affine - set a project’s coordinate system (scale/rotate/translate) with 3 or more known 3d points (3 point method was available in prev. version - this version adds 4+ points); coded target coordinate files - load these to automatically assign a multi-point affine transform to your project with coded targets; geographic coordinate capabilities (see below)
• New wizard for Scale/Rotate: a new Scale/Rotate Wizard walks though setting up of simple scale and rotations when the power of the EGE is not needed

New Camera Calibration method

• A new multi-sheet calibration method has been added which allows you to print a series of coded target sheets that can be placed in any configuration (e.g. larger area, off plane, etc). The calibration that results can be more reliable and can more closely resemble your typical scene.
• The option to use the single sheet calibration is still available.

On-photo Dimensions

• Put dimensions on your photos for permanent display and output - just like in CAD drawings.
• Offset any desired distance from points - leader lines connect dimension to feature automatically
• Dimensions are tied to underlying features so they update when features change or move
• Add text annotations anywhere on a photo as well
• A new Dimensions Table displays all dimensions in project and allows editing

Exceptional Improved Speed

With PhotoModeler and PhotoModeler Scanner 2010 (and later) you get through your important work more quickly and efficiently.

"PhotoModeler has been an integral part of my forensic toolbox for several years. This latest version has added a number of rich features, but the performance improvement and processing speed is simply remarkable", Eugene Liscio, P.E., AI2-3D Forensics.

The speed of the following functions has been improved for all computers:
- Global optimization / processing
- Automarking (dots and coded targets)
- Camera calibration
- Imaging functions (such as opening photos and painting marks)
- Texture creation
- Scanner / Dense Surface Model creation
- Scanner / Meshing and clean up functions

Additionally for those with multi-core processors an extra speed improvement comes in these areas:
- Automarking (dots and coded targets)
- Global optimization / processing
- Scanner / Dense Surface Model creation
- Scanner / Meshing and clean up functions
- Texture creation
- Idealizing photos

Shown below are graphs illustrating the amazing speed improvements for six different projects. Graphs show the time in seconds to complete the operation so smaller bars are better:

These are six typical projects run in the current PhotoModeler 6.3 version and in the new PhotoModeler 2010 version. For example, a 12 photo calibration project took 165 seconds from start to finish in PhotoModeler 6, 37 seconds in PhotoModeler 2010 with one cpu core, and 17 seconds in PhotoModeler 2010 with four cpu cores - that is a 10 times or 1,000% improvement! Every project is different so not all results will be exactly like this (some better and some worse) but these are typical speed improvements. Tests were all done on the same computer.

Looking at the speed improvement another way - as an improvement factor (1 = speed of PhotoModeler 6):

* further speed improvements are expected before final release with DSM creation on multi-core cpus.

With a four core CPU we see typical speed increases of 10 times for calibration processing and like autoprojects, 16 times increase in intensive automarking, 4 times increase in 3D processing, and upwards of 32 times increase in Scanner's dense surface model creation.

Project details

The projects used in the tests above were:

Other Interesting Improvements with 2010

1. The Coded Target capability is now included with all versions of PhotoModeler at no extra change - ie. no longer an add-on module.
2. The meshing capabilities (triangulation, point cloud clean, contours, etc.) in PhotoModeler Scanner are now based on Leios Components from EGS. The library is fast and produces very good results - as well as improving on some licensing aspects (such as move license).
3. The look of the interface has been changed and improved - you can now assign skins to change the complete look of the UI. In addition, the messages and Yes/No dialogs have been converted to a modern form; and the Processing and Export dialogs have been modernized.
4. A new optional Maintenance Subscription system provides major and minor updates and technical support in a once yearly fee (included the first year).
5. Now get immediate feedback of associated items during selection - ie. select an item in a table, 3d viewer or photo and referenced items (for points, edges, and cylinders) are immediately shown in a ‘sub-selection’ color on all other open views so you can more easily see relationships.
6. Automatically fit a NURBS curve to a set of selected points (fast way to connect a number of target points into a curve) - points do not need to be selected in order.
7. A new polyline feature allows easy connection of a number of 3d points with one entity (it is a sub-option of curve-through-points - switch between an interpolated curve or straight line ‘polyline’ segments).
8. Mouse-over info tips - place the mouse cursor over a marked feature on a photo and after a suitable short delay a popup tip displays pertinent information about that feature.  Similar pop-ups for photo chips. (See second image at top right of this page).
9. Better user control over what gets exported to CAD by using layers (include or exclude items from your export by putting them on layers and choosing what layers are exported).
10. PointMesh data files are now stored directly in the pmr project file so it is easier to move and archive DSM projects.
11. The license move procedure has been improved and will be less problematic (esp. with scanner).
12. Triangulated meshes in PM Scanner are now treated like any other surface -making them easier to export, texture, etc.
13. Closed circular curves now have an implicit 3D center point (which can be used for measurement, and to connect lines, and surfaces to).
14. Loading of these new image formats: Jpeg2000 (*.jpx/*.jp2), Paint Shop Pro (*.psp), HD Photo (24-bit) *.hdp/*.wpd, and Portable Bitmap (.pgm).
15. A new project backup command:  “File / Backup Project” will copy and compresses (to .zip) the project (.pmr) and all the project’s image files. Useful for packaging a project for storage or for transmission.
16. The ALT-zoom window’s zoom factor can now be changed with the mouse wheel.
17. In PM Scanner a Contour Table has been added, which displays each individual contour in a table with Associated PointMesh ID, Axis, Height, Material, Layer, and User name.
18. In PM Scanner contours can now be projected onto photographs. (See first image at top right of this page).

In addition to these new features there have been over 100 other fixes and improvements.  View the complete list of all changes here (scroll down to see complete 2010 list).