123D Catch - 3D models from your own photos!
I have been blown away recently by 123D Catch by Autodesk - and it's free! I first came across it on the iPad. You take a series of photos from different angles of an object - it can be anything from a small toy to a complete building, including images of people if they keep still long enough - and those then get sent to "the Cloud". Sent back in a few minutes is a complete textured 3D model which you can display and view from all angles on the iPad.
Better yet, you can download the desktop version of 123D Catch where you can re-download your model and edit it, removing unwanted pieces and then save out as an OBJ file, so that you can use it in your favourite 3D software. Or you can upload your photos from a higher res camera and create the 3D model from those. And all free! The results will obviously depend on your original images (garbage in, garbage out...) but I have already produced some interesting and useful results.
If you ever wanted a desktop digitizer and couldn't afford one, this may well be the next best thing!
Have a look here:
http://www.123dapp.com/catch
Comments
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I hear what you say but you don't have to put your projects into the public area, so if you want to keep control, simply don't post to the public area. Unless I'm missing something?
And actually, the public area is a good source of some interesting models...
Bad lawyer, you forgot "submit"...
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yeah, as I said on their video last month, Android version pleeeeeeeeeeeeease!!
Won't that work?
Won't that work?
Yes that would work and it would probably give higher resolution results than using the built-in iPad camera, although that is very convenient to work with.
Yup, that was my intent on trying it out. Though I might get out my tripod and my point and click 10mp camera just for stability. I haven't had a chance to play yet.
I think that their processing is limited to images of around 3 MP and it will downsize larger formats. Also as you want images from many angles, setting and resetting a tripod increases your work ten-fold for probably a limited gain. Seems to work OK with the iPad camera which I think is only around 1 MP. I am sure that you will get better results going up to 3 MP but after that, not so much.
Interesting. My assumption was that the tripod would give me a near-uniform angle as I rotated the object (rather than the camera/tripod) and that would make for a better result.
thanks for sharing, not sure I'll find a use but its good to know about.
This looks like it would work well with reference photos from 3DSK... but not sure about the nudity or the usage would be covered from your 3DSK membership or not.
I think it needs a static scene to work with so you need to move the camera and not the object - it uses surroundings to help place everything in 3D space. You don't need uniform angles, you need lots of different angles. It can be used for things like buildings too (I've even seen a 3D cloudscape that was done with it!) where you couldn't move the object!
I have something called Autodesk Photo scene editor that has been apparently superceeded by this, I never got it to work
I thought I would share some of my results from using 123D Catch. These models have been captured using an iPad, cleaned up on the PC desktop version (in the case of the Jane Seymour figurine) and then exported and rendered in Carrara.
those look so cool, unlike my attempts with my camera phone and desktop :red:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ODiHZAPifRw
found turning a video into image sequences only way to get something, I am a crappy photographer, sooooooo need an Android app
joined the thread on their forum clamouring for one!!!