Photogrammetry software options

- [Instructor] In this video, we'll talk about different options for photogrammetry software packages. Now, there's lots of different photogrammetry softwares out there, and those include ones like Metashape, which we'll cover in this course, Autodesk ReCap, RealityCapture 3DF Zephyr, and Meshroom. Now, the photogrammetry software itself doesn't exist in a vacuum. We also need to consider other parts of a workflow that can help get us through photogrammetry. And those include things like photo editing for which you might want to rely on a package like Photoshop or the GNU Image Manipulation Program which is an open source alternative for editing images. And then we'll also need to take into account mesh editing. A lot of these tools that we'll talk about in this video have in-app mesh editing tools built into the photogrammetry software, but some of them don't. In another video, we'll talk more in depth about standalone mesh editing tools, like Meshmixer, Rhinoceros, Maya, and Geomagic. So let's go a little bit more in depth to each of our photogrammetry packages here and talk about some of the ins and outs of each one. Metashape is the photogrammetry package we'll be using throughout this course. It's cross-platform, which means it runs on Windows, Mac, and Linux. It's relatively affordable and offers a perpetual license for the standard version. There is also a professional version which offers more features and of course is more expensive. Metashape gives you really fine-tune control over all of the steps in a photogrammetry workflow and offers some basic mesh editing tools built right into the software. Autodesk ReCap is Windows only, and unlike the other are options here offers a cloud-based processing system. So that means you're not actually processing things on your own computer. You're uploading everything to Autodesk servers and the processing happens there. The licensing works on a subscription model which allows you to process a certain number of photographs. So again, key difference here is that there's no local processing. The advantage to that is it doesn't depend on the specs of your computer in terms of the results that you'll get or the speed that the process will take. The disadvantage is you do lose some control over the process. So we don't have as much fine control over individual settings as we do in some of these other programs. ReCap does, however, have really good mesh editing tools built right into the software. RealityCapture is Windows only. Its licensing runs on a relatively low priced subscription or a relatively pricey standalone license. RealityCapture is fast and possibly better for low-end computers. It offers good control over all of the settings throughout the photogrammetry workflow, but has little to no mesh editing capabilities. So you'll want to consider a separate standalone mesh editor package if you're using RealityCapture. 3DF Zephyr is Windows only, and it offers free, lite and full versions. Licensing is relatively affordable. And with each of those versions, you'll unlock additional features. For example, the two paid versions, lite and full, offer the ability to mask your photos which can help improve your results. And last but not, it includes mesh editing tools. Meshroom's a really interesting player here in the photogrammetry ecosystem. It runs on Windows and Linux. It's free and open source. It runs as a standalone program or as a Maya plugin. So if you're a Maya user, you can use it right inside of the software you're already familiar with. And like Maya, it uses a node-based editing system which offers you a good balance of ease of use and control over detailed settings. So that's just a quick overview of a few of the packages that exist out there in the world of photogrammetry.