Autodesk Photofly Preview: Sphinx

28 Jun, 2011 by Adam OHern in Blog, Tutorials
Tags: , , ,

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I was initially skeptical of Photofly, but this is freakin’ cool.

About Adam OHern

Adam O'Hern is an industrial design consultant, designing products ranging from laptops to power tools, classroom toys to bathroom fixtures, and pro audio gear to guitar tuners. In 2008 he founded cadjunkie.com, and in 2010 co-founded EvD Media with Josh Mings of SolidSmack.com, and the two collaborate on the EngineerVsDesigner.com podcast.

Adam on google+

  • Micr0

    Hey Adam, Happy 4th! Are you missing the Inebriation, fireworks and gluttony that are our customary national celebratory rituals? NYC here (at 11pm) sounds like downtown Tripoli. Yet here I sit refraining from my usual romance with high explosives to sit patiently by my computer waiting for the fabled and much ballyhooed Solidworks tutorials that must surely be only moments away. Ok, I actually have financial statements that I have to have to the bank before 9am tomorrow morning but that doesn’t sound as devoted and egger for some SW goodness. I’ve been playing with photo fly a lot over the last few days (not only cool but fun at parties too) and have learned a lot of tricks. Mostly my son thinks it’s the coolest thing ever to see himself in the computer in 3D and became very insistent that I create one of mommy too. I don’t have any programs that will import the .obj file directly though I have found a plug in translator for SW but have yet to get it working. Mostly I’d like to export these models for posting to the web so that others can easily view. I know eDrawings will support some form of this but haven’t taken the time to look into it and I’m hoping that there is some standalone format that won’t require edrawings or the like to be installed before someone can view the model. I have also done a few of the engines I have around the shop and one 3D model in particular would be very useful to have as a reference in SW mated to a more accurate scan I did with my CMM at the shop. Also, tonight I showed Photofly to a very good friend who is a location scout for commercials and film. He got very excited about the prospect of offering directors and producers 3d models of potential filming locations so we are going to do his and my apartments tomorrow and see if it will work as planned. I donut have a lot of experience with file interchange formats beyond .iges and DXF so any suggestions about how to make this useful in SW and for presentation would be much appreciated.

    TTFN

    µ

    • http://cadjunkie.com adam

      Happy 4th indeed! I hope you enjoyed it properly. We did enjoy a lovely cookout in the garden with some of our New World compatriots here in Athens, but–for better or worse–the event was a far cry from the American event it pantomimed. It was a lovely excuse to spend an evening in the garden none the less!

      Unfortunately SW does not allow you to read-in mesh data by default. In order to import scan data, you would need the SW “ScanTo3D” module. This is one of the saddest and most frustrating things about working with SW, since other packages include the ability to view mesh data at no additional charge. The ScanTo3D software does provide some pretty impressive features, but I couldn’t justify the cost given how seldom I work with scan data.

      I’m going to make a suggestion that I almost never make: have you considered Blender(.org)? The interface is completely FUBAR, but it’s actually quite capable considering that it’s completely free. At any rate, it’s a quick download, simple install, and worth a shot for reading in the data.

      Another option would be to read the data into something like Rhino, rebuild the skeleton surfaces there, and then import those into SW using IGS.

      Let me know what you find!

      Adam

      PS My wife and I will be moving to NYC for a stint later in the summer (August 1 – mid-September). We’ll have to meet up properly this time! After the runaround I gave you last time, I definitely owe you a beer!

  • Bob deWitt

    Interesting. There is what seems to be a competing product available that has been around for years. I have never used it, so I don’t know how it compares but it is called ‘Strata Foto 3D CX.’ According to Strata’s website, it is described thusly: “Strata Foto 3D CX lets you use a standard digital camera to capture real-world objects as fully textured 3D models. Its ideal for difficult to model objects like organic shapes, soft forms and hand made items. The included Photoshop plug-in makes model creation even easier. Foto 3D models are ideal for developing packaging, games, illustrations, online catalogs and more.”

    Bob

    • http://cadjunkie.com adam

      Yes, there are definitely competitors; in fact there are lots of them. This was just the first one I’ve seen that’s… well… free :)

  • Andrew Ward

    This looks like it has some serious potential! Suppose I need to create a quick background scene featuring the Arc de Triomphe.

    [img]http://library.gmu.edu/resources/french/arc-de-triomphe.jpg[/img]

    Could I have someone in Paris take the pictures and e-mail them to me so that I can use them to generate the model with Photofly?

    • FordEdge

      Probably a lot less hassle would be to simply search the google sketchup 3D warehouse and translate the object. The free 3D warehouse has a ton of popular objects like that. Most are crude boxes with the textures wrapped on but some are pretty detailed.

      Didn’t Microsoft show off a cool 2D app a few years back that stitched a billion photo’s together to show most tourist locations inch by inch in detail (like google street map)?

  • FordEdge

    This would be a perfect application as a 3rd party plugin to most 3D modellers. I think Adam was dead on by saying it could be used as a template more than the actual object itself.

    Eg, As a plugin take the pictures and save the “Cage” with reference measurements. Then while designing in Modo I could hit eg. F12 at anytime to show the cage w/o textures for reference. Sorta like a 3D backdrop that kept aligned with camera views..

    BTW, I think a lot of .obj files import to Modo with luminous textures. This may be a Modo problem as I’ve loaded in textured .obj files that look super washed out until I figured out the luminous was cranked up on the textures. I actually was going to pose that question to Adam if there was a global way to adjust 30 textures back down to 0.00 luminous values…

    • http://cadjunkie.com adam

      I don’t think anyone pretends that scan data will be useful in and of itself, but more as a reference. Maybe in the year 2050 we’ll have a functionally useful scanner, but in the meantime we’ll have to rebuild it :)

      But you can do more than use it as a mere template in modo! Using the “Background Constraint” you can actively stick geometry to the background mesh on the fly. I plan to do a tut soon.

      To change multiple materials at once, just [ctrl]+click them all, then edit any property you like. All of the materials will update.

      Adam

      • FordEdge

        Is it just me or is this very buggy software? I have had it lock up on my laptop several times. It also seems very very slow for a “cloud” application. I’m running Win7 X64 with 8G…

        • http://cadjunkie.com adam

          As I said, it’s “very” beta :)

          • FordEdge

            Perhaps the term “Proof of concept”… 8)