Comparing PhotoModeler Standard and Premium
There are two products in the PhotoModeler line up:
- PhotoModeler Standard – suited to manual, CAD-based, Coded Targets, and single photo projects.
- PhotoModeler Premium – suited to dense surface modeling, and working with LIDAR data, etc. – in addition to the manual and target projects described in Standard.
PhotoModeler Premium contains all the features of PhotoModeler Standard.
Which product should you use?
Note that if you have a mix of project types, Premium can handle all the projects that Standard can, making Premium the best choice
Your Field | Use Standard | Use Premium |
|---|---|---|
Fabrication / Manufacturing | Yes | |
Forensics & Single Photo | Yes | When integrating with laser scan data. |
Marine Decking | Yes | Cell |
Marine Canvas | Yes | Yes - for covers and full boat point clouds |
Accident Reconstruction | Ground-based photography | Ground and UAV/drone photography |
2D Template Pattern Digitizing | Yes | |
Construction Cut / Fill | Yes | |
DEM, Contours, Ortho-photos | Yes | |
Drone/UAV Projects | Simple, non-automated projects | Larger projects and need for geographic systems |
Research / Academics | Simple and Coded-Target projects | Everything else. |
Feature Comparison Standard vs Premium
| Standard | Premium | |
| Model Objects | ||
| Points, Lines, Edges, Cylinders | Yes | Yes |
| Outlines | Yes | Yes |
| SmartPoints | Yes | |
| Volume Objects | Yes | |
| Curves: referenced and fit through points, NURBS | Yes | Yes |
| Surfaces | Yes | Yes |
| Point Clouds and Mesh Surfaces | Yes | |
| 3D Planes | Yes | Yes |
| Surface Draw | Yes | Yes |
| Contours on mesh surfaces | Yes | |
| Major and Minor contours | Yes | |
| Profile curves on mesh surfaces | Yes | |
| Offset points | Yes | Yes |
| Materials | Yes | Yes |
| Photo-textures | Yes | Yes |
| Corrected Textures | Yes | Yes |
| Layers | Yes | Yes |
| Measurement / Review | ||
| Bundle adjustment | Yes | Yes |
| Camera calibration | Yes | Yes |
| Field calibration | Yes | Yes |
| Auto-calibration | Yes | Yes |
| Sub-pixel targets | Yes | Yes |
| Sphere targets | Yes | Yes |
| Charts and Graphs | Yes | Yes |
| Residuals and precision reporting | Yes | Yes |
| 3D confidence region display | Yes | Yes |
| 3D view light ray display | Yes | Yes |
| Tables | Yes | Yes |
| On-photo dimensions | Yes | Yes |
| Measurement Pane | Yes | Yes |
| Check distances and points | Yes | Yes |
| Point review pane | Yes | Yes |
| Project review pane | Yes | Yes |
| Colorize surface height | Yes | Yes |
| Colorize mesh surface models | Yes | |
| Line Object Extend | Yes | Yes |
| Auditing functions | Yes | Yes |
| Measurement Units | Yes | Yes |
| Context-sensitive and hyper-linked help | Yes | Yes |
| PDF Manual | Yes | Yes |
| Private Local Processing | Yes | Yes |
| SmartMatch | Yes | |
| Dense Surface Modeling | Yes | |
| Multi-View Stereo | Yes | |
| Automatic Target Marking | Yes | Yes |
| Automatic Referencing | Yes | Yes |
| Auto surfacing on points | Yes | Yes |
| Coded targets | Yes | Yes |
| Template targets | Yes | Yes |
| Point Auto-detect | Yes | |
| Auto-detect control | Yes | |
| Single photo support | Yes | Yes |
| Single photo full calibration | Yes | Yes |
| Low photo-count support | Yes | Yes |
| Inverse camera | Yes | Yes |
| Idealize | Yes | |
| Photo Sets | Yes | Yes |
| Camera library | Yes | Yes |
| Mesh modify tools | Yes | |
| Triangulated mesh slice and crop | Yes | |
| Water-tight mesh creation | Yes | |
| Project Merge | Yes | Yes |
| Texture masks | Yes | Yes |
| DSM masks | Yes | |
| Chroma-key & alpha masks | Yes | Yes |
| Motion – type 1 | Yes | |
| Motion – type 2 | Yes | |
| Pattern Capture Workflow | Yes | Yes |
| Automatic 2D Tracing | Yes | Yes |
| Enhanced photo viewing | Yes | Yes |
| Photo visibility control | Yes | Yes |
| User Point Tags | Yes | Yes |
| ZIP Backup | Yes | Yes |
| Scripting | Yes | Yes |
| Multi-core support for speeding up core algs | Yes | Yes |
| User Interface | ||
| Customizable user interface | Yes | Yes |
| 3D viewer | Yes | Yes |
| Photo 3D projections | Yes | Yes |
| 3D viewer stereo display | Yes | Yes |
| 3D viewer photo display | Yes | Yes |
| Themes | Yes | Yes |
| Network floating license support | Yes | Yes |
| Selection control | Yes | Yes |
| Zoom control | Yes | Yes |
| Epi-polar reference helper lines | Yes | Yes |
| External Interfaces | ||
| Multiple Image types loaded | Yes | Yes |
| Film, digital and video camera support | Yes | Yes |
| Import Videos | Yes | |
| Multiple 3D export formats | Yes | Yes |
| Export photo-textured models | Yes | Yes |
| Export ortho-mosaic mapped models | Yes | Yes |
| Print/output views | Yes | Yes |
| Ortho-photo creation | Yes | Yes |
| Ortho-photo blending, masks & occlusions | Yes | Yes |
| Point coordinate transforms | Yes | Yes |
| Multiple scales | Yes | Yes |
| Geographical coord systems | Yes | |
| Independent coordinate system axes | Yes | Yes |
| Control points | Yes | Yes |
| Constraints | Yes | Yes |
| Import 3D objects | Yes | Yes |
| Auto-assignment of import data | Yes | Yes |
| Mesh and point cloud import | Yes | |
| Align laser scanner point clouds | Yes | |
| Colorize laser scanner point clouds | Yes | |
| Read EXIF GPS info from images | Yes | |
| Pre-defined coded target coordinates | Yes | Yes |
| 3D animation export | Yes | Yes |
| Upload to YouTube | Yes | Yes |
| Scripting and external programming | Yes | Yes |
| Flexible text and CSV import | Yes | Yes |
| PDF Report Generation | Yes | |
Feature Descriptions
| Feature | Description | |
| Model Objects | ||
| Points, Lines, Edges, Cylinders | The basic building blocks of 3D modeling: 3D points, lines, edges (lines without matching end points across photos), and cylinders. | |
| SmartPoints | Points that are automatically detected on ‘interesting’ features in photos. | |
| Volume Objects | An object that makes it easier to document and measure 2.5D volumes (like stockpiles) | |
| Curves: referenced and fit through points, NURBS | 3D splines from matching two or more 2D photo splines, or by fitting through 3D points. | |
| Surfaces | Surface types: triangle, path, NURBS fit to points, loft, sweep, revolution, cone. | |
| Point Clouds and Mesh Surfaces | Dense, triangulated and point-cloud surfaces. | |
| 3D Planes | 3D Planes along an axis, or fit to selected points, lines or contours. | |
| Surface Draw | Points, lines and curves drawn on a 3D surface from a single photograph. | |
| Contours on mesh surfaces | Extracted contour lines at user-defined intervals on a mesh surface. | |
| Major and minor contours | Provide display different characteristics for minor vs major contours. | |
| Profile curves on mesh surfaces | Extracted profile curves from intersection of a user-defined plane with a mesh surface. | |
| Offset points | Automatically compute virtual 3D points from single and doubled points of known relationships. Useful for many measurement tasks with inaccessible or hard to reach points. | |
| Materials | Solid RGB colors with specular controls, and photo-texturing on created 3D surfaces. | |
| Photo-textures | Detailed textures for 3D viewing and export extracted from original photographs. From single photos or blended from multiple photos – with occlusion checking optional. | |
| Corrected Textures | Photo-textures, pulled from photos, have all perspective and lens distortion aberrations removed, and then with multi-photo blending options provide superior results. | |
| Layers | Group objects logically for viewing and export. | |
| Measurement / Review | ||
| Bundle adjustment | The main photogrammetric algorithm that generates accurate 3D data from photographic marks and camera information. | |
| Camera calibration | Offline high-accuracy calibration of cameras from provided pattern. Solves for focal length, pixel size, principal point and lens distortions. | |
| Field calibration | Ability to calibrate a camera’s internal parameters simultaneously with solving a real measurement project. | |
| Auto-calibration | During SmartMatch improve a camera’s calibration for higher accuracy. | |
| Sub-pixel targets | 2D center-finding of circular, high-contrast targets to sub-pixel precision – used to improve overall accuracy of 3D point projects. | |
| Sphere targets | Precise center finding of sphere targets in photos. Great for laser scanner data integration. | |
| Charts and Graphs | Chart and graph key quality metrics (such as point residuals, angles, and photo connectivity). | |
| Residuals and precision reporting | Reporting of point residuals and bundle precisions to aid with assessing accuracy and troubleshooting. | |
| 3D confidence region display | Points in the 3D viewer can be displayed with error ellipsoids corresponding to the true deviation and correlations of errors. It graphically shows you the direction of and relative precision of each point. | |
| 3D view light ray display | Show the ‘light rays’ between camera positions and points in the 3D viewer to depict their relationships. For single points, all points on a photo or multiple selections. | |
| Tables | Spread-sheet-like data tables showing information on photos, model objects, etc. With configurable columns, sorting, etc. | |
| On-photo dimensions | Parametric dimension lines shown photographs between user-chosen points. Can be exported. | |
| Measurement Pane | Scrolling list of user-directed measurements between model objects such as: point to point, point to line, line to line, point to surface, angles, volumes, and areas. | |
| Check distances and points | Special tables that show current error differences between user-entered distances and the computed distances. Similarly for 3D points with x,y,z and distance errors shown. | |
| Point review pane | Display of image sub-regions centered on all references of a selected point. Great for fast review and modification of point position on multiple photos. | |
| Project review pane | Wizard and user-interface pane that gives intelligent feedback on project quality and possible issues. | |
| Colorize surface height | False-color surfaces by height. | |
| Colorize clouds and mesh surface models | False-color point clouds and mesh surfaces by height and by number of photo overlap. | |
| Line Object Extend | Lines, Cylinders and Edges have a property which extends the object in 3D by a given percentage. In the 3D viewer see dashed-line extensions on either end of the object – useful for visualizing where two or more lines or cylinders intersect in 3D space. | |
| Auditing functions | Audit dialog provides overview data on model objects and their quality. | |
| Measurement Units | Handle different measurement units for display, import and export: km, m, cm, mm, mile, yd, ft, survey ft (2014.1), & in. | |
| Context-sensitive and hyper-linked help | Extensive help file with links from the program dialogs to give context, as well as extensive internal hyper-links for easy browsing. | |
| PDF Manual | Full manual matching the help file available as a PDF file for easier browsing. | |
| Private Local Processing | Processing is carried out on local computer and is private. | |
| SmartMatch | Automatic extraction and matching of natural feature points in images, and the orientation and processing to produce 3D data. | |
| Dense Surface Modeling | Extraction of dense 3D point clouds by matching textured surfaces across images. | |
| Multi-View Stereo | Dense surface model extraction with easier and higher quality MVS method. | |
| Automatic Target Marking | Automatic search, and high-precision marking, of circular dot targets in one or more images. | |
| Automatic Referencing | Automatic matching/referencing of non-coded targets and photo points in images. | |
| Auto surfacing on points | Creation of triangulated surfaces from auto-marked, and auto-referenced points. | |
| Coded targets | Coded Targets are dot targets that can be marked to high precision and have unique code rings that the program can read to uniquely identify the points and match/reference them. Great for automated high accuracy projects. Coded targets can be printed on your own laser printer at different sizes. | |
| Template targets | Targets that can be automatically detected that are of user defined shape and not circular dots. | |
| Point Auto-detect | Automatically detect, mark and reference points in other photographs from a single mark in one photograph. | |
| Auto-detect control | Automatically detect, mark and reference control points and multi-point transform points in other photographs from a single mark in one photograph. | |
| Single photo support | The ability to extract information from a single photograph using various constraints such as known points or line relationships. | |
| Single photo full calibration | The ability to do a full camera calibration from a single photo with sufficient control points. Great for forensics with wide angle cameras. | |
| Low photo-count support | The ability to extract useful information from 2 or 3 photographs – common in forensic cases, or where you did not take the photos. | |
| Inverse camera | Reconstruct camera parameters (such as focal length, principal point and pixel shape) from photos and constraints for unknown cameras. Great tool in forensics. | |
| Idealize | Remove lens distortion and other camera effects from photos to make them ‘ideal’ (as if from a pin-hole camera). Good for background perspective matching in external rendering and animation software. | |
| Photo Sets | Group photos into logical sets for viewing and processing. Good for projects with a large number of photos. | |
| Camera library | A library where camera calibration data can be easily stored and retrieved. | |
| Mesh modify tools | Tools for filling holes, decimating, smoothing, etc. dense point meshes. | |
| Triangulated mesh slice and crop | Tool to create clean edges by slicing and cropping triangulated meshes. | |
| Water-tight mesh creation | Create a triangulated mesh that is water-tight – great for export to 3D printing. | |
| Project Merge | Merge multiple projects together into one project with a consistent coordinate system. | |
| Texture masks | A bit mask that controls what part of a photo is used a source of texture data. | |
| DSM masks | A bit mask that controls what part of a photo is scanned for dense surface modeling. | |
| Chroma-key & alpha masks | Create bit masks from input alpha-channels or chroma-keys (blue/green backgrounds). | |
| Motion – type 1 | Track targets across frames to produce 3D models over time – using multiple synced cameras. | |
| Motion – type 2 | Track targets across video frames where object moves slowly and one camera is used. | |
| Pattern Capture Workflow | A work-flow and workspace that make doing 2d templating projects much easier. | |
| Automatic 2D Tracing | A tool for automatic detection of line and edges in 2d templates and patterns and the creation of accurate Surface Draw from these lines and edges. | |
| Enhanced photo viewing | Modify a photo’s rotation, brightness and contrast for easier viewing. | |
| Photo visibility control | Control over what objects, types and layers appear on photos – to reduce clutter if need be. | |
| User Point Tags | Easy method of ‘tagging’ a point for future reference. | |
| ZIP Backup | One command to save all relevant project data (photos, and data files) in one zip file for easy storage or transmission. | |
| Scripting | Run script commands in a console, or load a text file with commands. See External Programmability below. | |
| Multi-core support for speeding up core algs | Many of the compute intensive algorithms of PhotoModeler use multi-thread processing to share the load and speed up processing for multi-core processors. | |
| User Interface | ||
| Customizable user interface | Toolbars, short-cut keys, window layouts, and table configurations are all user configurable. | |
| 3D Viewer | Window for displaying the resulting 3D models, meshes, textures, etc. | |
| Photo 3D projections | Display the 3D model data on top of, and projected onto the originating photographs. | |
| 3D viewer stereo display | View the 3D viewer with true depth – using stereo glasses. | |
| 3D viewer photo display | Display a small version of the photograph in its correct location and orientation in the 3D view. | |
| Themes | Install themes to change user interface colors, shading effects and button styles. | |
| Network floating license support | Run multiple licenses on a LAN. | |
| Selection control | Various tools to help find points and features in photos faster – the W key to highlight all referenced data on other photos, the sub-select highlight for immediate other-photo selection feedback, and zoom-about to provide selection-centered photo zoom control. | |
| Zoom control | Various photo zoom functions such as mouse wheel zoom, zoom pop-up window, alternate keys to access zoom, etc. | |
| Epi-polar reference helper lines | Lines that appear in other photos during manual point referencing to indicate where the other point should be. | |
| External Interfaces | ||
| Multiple Image types loaded | JPEG, Tiff, BMP, Paintbrush, Targa, PNG, Pict, Photoshop, PPM, MAC, IFF, CALS Raster, PhotoCD, SGI, & MS Hdphoto. | |
| Film, digital and video camera support | Load, and use effectively, photographic stills from digital, video and film cameras. | |
| Import Videos | Import video in mov, mp4, avi, wmv, 3gp, and mpg formats (depending on codec – h.264 is included), with manual and automated frame extraction. | |
| Multiple 3D export formats | 3D Studio (3ds and Max), Rhino 3DM, CSV, DXF, Filmbox, IGES, Google Earth, ASPRS LAS, Maya script, Wavefront-OBJ, STL, VRML, BYU, & Facet. | |
| Export photo-textured models | Export of 3D data with mapped and corrected photographic texture files in 3DS, OBJ, VRML and 3DM formats. | |
| Export ortho-mosaic mapped models | Export 2.5D surfaces with mapped texture UV from high quality ortho-mosaics. Great for aerial and drone projects. | |
| Print/output views | Print and copy to clipboard the contents of photo views, table views, and 3D views. Table views can be easily exported to Excel as well. | |
| Ortho-photo creation | Creation and export of a remapped image that has an orthographic projection (all effects of perspective are removed) and to scale. | |
| Ortho-photo blending, masks & occlusions | Advanced orthophoto creation capabilities: blending-blend multiple photos to reduce exposure variation; masks-mask out unwanted items; occlusion checking-remove texture from blocking geometry | |
| Point coordinate transforms | Three or more externally defined points or axes to define coordinate systems. | |
| Multiple scales | Photogrammetric projects are scaleless until a scale is defined. One or more scale distances can be provided. | |
| Geographical coord systems | Import external 3D data in a geographic system as well as specify the output geographic system used for exports. GPS and survey data. Support for camera stations, points assigned geo coords and as control or transforms. | |
| Independent coordinate system axes | Define the coordinate system axes (X, Y, Z) by choosing independent points and/or lines. With a Wizard to help set up the common and easy scenarios. | |
| Control points | Import of known 3D data points (from a survey or other source) to control the orientation and coordinate system of the 3D project. | |
| Constraints | User-specified constraints on parallel and perpendicular relationships. | |
| Import 3D objects | Import of 3D files to combine with and overlay with photographic and created 3D data. | |
| Auto-assignment of import data | Automatically assign control, pinned, and multi-point transform points to associated points in the project. Points can be assigned by matching user name or point IDs. | |
| Mesh and point cloud import | Import of point clouds (LAS, STL, OBJ, PLY, BYU, FACET, DAT, TXT). | |
| Align laser scanner point clouds | Import a laser scanner point cloud and some matching target points, and align with an existing PhotoModeler Premium project of the same area. | |
| Colorize laser scanner point clouds | Import a laser scanner point cloud and match it to the photographs, then automatically extract the color value from projection on one or more photographs to produce an RGB point cloud. | |
| Read EXIF GPS info from images | Some camera systems can store accurate geographic coordinates of the camera location in each image’s EXIF tags. PhotoModeler can load this data and use it in a multi-point transform to set up an accurate geo coordinate system. Great for UAVs that have geo-tagging cameras. | |
| Pre-defined coded target coordinates | User-defined coordinate transform points tied to coded target ids, for automatic assignment and project coordinate system setup. | |
| 3D animation export | Export animations (fly-throughs etc.) to various video formats. | |
| Upload to YouTube | Upload of 3D viewer animations directly to YouTube. | |
| External programmability | Control the program (create projects, mark photographs, dense surface modeling, smartmatch, etc.) from an external programming language. | |
| Flexible text and CSV import | Flexible import of 3D points and distances from csv, space-separated data files. Control over which rows and columns to import and their order. Great for survey, and point cloud import from external instruments and programs. | |
| PDF Report Generation | Generate a good looking pdf report of the project for internal use or client submission. | |