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FALL 2020 UPDATE: The Scholars’ Lab sta will be working remotely to
support your teaching and research needs. All of our workshops, events,
and consultations will be online throughout the Fall. Contact us at
scholarslab@virginia.edu to ask a question or schedule a virtual GIS, VR,
digital project, or makerspace consultation.
Light is critical to this process and therefore there are certain objects that are di cult, if not
impossible, to model using photogrammetry: objects with re ective or shiny surfaces,
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clear/transparent objects like glass, very thin objects like tree leaves, very furry or hairy
things, things that move (e.g. your pet hamster or your best friend’s head).
In this blog posting I go through the work ow to create a high quality, scaled model using
our photogrammetry station in the Robertson Media Center on the third oor of Clemons
Library and computer software called Agisoft Metashape (previously Photoscan). If you
want to create a quick and less accurate model or you are working in the eld or with a
collection where you can’t bring the physical object to Clemons, check out my posting on
photogrammetry in the eld with your smart phone.
DSLR Camera
Tripod
Level
Color and White Balance cards
Painter’s tape
Remote release
Optional: lint roller (to clean the black backdrop if necessary)
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Environment
White Light box: this will di use the light so you don’t get harsh shadows
Black background and base (ideally photographers black drop cloth, or felt if
necessary)
Turntable
Lighting: we like photographers LED lights on tripods that you can move around, add
light lters etc.
Scales / Ruler
Optional: black pedestal for your object
All cameras
Some Cameras
1. Turn o GPS (you can take some photos with the GPS later if desired)
2. Turn o sensor cleaning on power down (if the camera shakes the sensor to remove
dust on power down)
3. If using zoom lens set the focal distance to one end of the other of the focal length
and tape it down with painters’ tape.
4. If the lens has ‘image stabilization’ or ‘vibration reduction’ turn it OFF (usually a switch
on the lens itself.)
Optional Adjustments
1. We suggest starting with your camera and tripod positioned on the same horizontal
plane as your object- e.g. your camera should be aligned directly with the center of
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your object. You’ll move it up and down later. Use a tripod that has an adjustable
central pole so that you don’t have to move the feet of the tripod, but just the camera
up or down. Make sure you position the central pole in the middle of its height range
so that you are able to adjust up or down later.
2. Check to make sure your camera base is level.
3. Place your object in the center of the turntable and position your camera tripod such
that the entire object is visible. Make sure that when you rotate the object it doesn’t
move out of the frame! If possible, avoid including the edges of the lightbox or edge
of your black background in the photo frame; this will make masking much easier
later on.
4. Lighting: You want your object to be illuminated with di used light to minimize
shadows. LED lights with tripods and lters are available to check out. Position lights
to shine towards the front of the object but still behind the white-box sides.
Camera Adjustments.
There are four critical settings on a DSLR you want to be aware of: ISO, white balance,
aperture (f/stop), and shutter speed. All cameras are di erent and the target numbers will
depend on the environment in which you are shooting. All four of these settings are inter-
related. It is important to have a sense of how changing one setting will impact the others.
1. Focus and Zoom. Zoom: Set your lens to properly frame the subject and use painters
tape to tape down the setting. (If you have a prime lens you can skip this step.) DO
NOT ZOOM your lens while shooting the subject. Zoom to one setting and lock it
down!
Focus: Set the camera to manual focus OR use auto focus to set the focus distance
then switch the camera to manual focus. Tape the focus lens with painter’s tape after
setting the focus.
Keeping the same focus and zoom will ensure your photos are consistent. You
may need to adjust the focus when you move your camera to di erent heights.
Just make sure you don’t change any of the other settings!
the more noise you introduce into your photo. For Photogrammetry we want to
reduce noise by setting a low ISO. (Note that this will increase exposure time
which is OK since the camera is on a tripod.)
5. Shutter speed. If you are working in aperture priority (A or AV) mode skip this step!
The camera will adjust the shutter speed accordingly. Most likely, you’ll be setting
your camera to a 1/80 shutter speed or higher depending on the light quality.
The shutter speed is the amount of time the shutter on your camera is open.
Shutter speed is measured in fractions of seconds, so you’ll see on your camera
screen a fraction 1/1000 to 1/8 (shown as 0“etc. Since we’re using a tripod here,
we avoid some issues with stability and slow shutter speeds resulting in blurry
photos. With the tripod we want to set the shutter speed very slow (higher
number) to allow for the low amount of light coming in due to the smaller
apertures (high fstop) and low ISO settings. Use a quick release while taking
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Is there dust or debris on the black background? If so, use the lint roller to get rid of
it!
Write down your ISO, F/stop and shutter speed settings for the rst round of photos
in case something happens with the settings when you move your camera to a new
angle and change the focus.
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necessary. Do not change any other settings on your camera. Rotate the turntable on
10 degree increments, taking 36 photos total.
3. Upper Position. Raise the camera on the tripod and adjust the angle of the camera
to point downwards so your object is still in the center of your frame. Adjust your
focus if necessary. Do not change any other settings on your camera. Rotate the
turntable on 10 degree increments, taking 36 photos total.
4. Take photos with Scale bars.
5. Take photos with color bar and/or gray card
6. Take a photo of the turntable without the object
7. Optional: turn the object upside-down and follow steps 1-3.
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create new Chunks for each circuit. Use only one Chunk with multiple Camera Groups
nested within.
Mask Photos. If your background has dust, bits of tape, or isn’t otherwise perfectly uniform,
you’ll need to mask out the background. If you forgot to take a photo of your empty
background you can either
1. In your Workspace, expand the le with the photos in your rst circuit folder so you
can see the lenames. Select one of your cleanest images so that it appears in the
Model pane.
2. Right-click on one of the photos and under Masks click Import Masks… and enter the
following parameters in the pop-up box: Method: From Background Operation:
Replacement Filename template: leave the default {filename}_mask.jpg Apply to: Selected
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cameras
3. Start with the default tolerance (10) and click OK. A window will pop up where you
can navigate to your background photo.
4. If enough of the background isn’t masked out, you’ll need to adjust the tolerance
accordingly. Try to strike a balance between having the entire background masked
out and cutting too far into your object. You want the number to be as low as
possible with all or at least most of the background masked out. The higher the
tolerance, the more it will eat into your object.
5. Once you’re satis ed with the mask you’re ready to mask the group. In the
Workspace select the entire folder and camera group. Right click on the group folder
and under Masks click Import Masks… and keep the same parameters you used on
the single le except:
Filename template : file name must match exactly that of your background photo.
Copy and paste the name from your folder into the le name template box. Make
sure the lename extension is the same also. When you click OK a window will pop-
up. Select the FOLDER where the background image le is located.
6. You can check the masks by double clicking on photos in the Photos Pane.
7. OPTIONAL: If you still aren’t satis ed with the automatic masking and there are just a
handful of unmasked areas in the photos you can do some touch-ups by hand. If you
happened to start with an image with any extra objects, the program will continue to
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t a objects, t e p og a ll co t ue to
mask that area even if it disappears in other images in the circuit. You might want to
go back and use a cleaner image to start the process again.
On your toolbar select the dotted rectangle icon tool. Right-click on the photo in the
Model Pane. Use the Magic Wand or Rectangle Selection to select area you want to
mask, right click again and select Add Selection. If there are parts of your object that
are masked that shouldn’t be, you can also select them and click Subtract Selection.
1. Go to the Work ow menu and click on Align Photos. In the pop-up window select
the following:
General Accuracy : High
Select √ Generic Preselection
This process will take some time depending on how many photos you’ve added.
When complete, click on the Tie Points at the bottom of your workspace and you
will see your object made of points. Check two things:
1. Zoom out and make sure your photos are all positioned correctly. If you
completed each circuit evenly, you should see your object encircled by your
photos.
2. Look at your Workspace and see that all photos are aligned. If there are some
that didn’t align you can either:
1. Redo the alignment with a di erent Tie point limit, making sure that you
Select √ Reset current alignment.
2. In Workspace select the photos that didn’t align, right-click and choose
Align Selected Photos.
3. If a large number of photos didn’t align, create a new Camera Group in your
work space and drag and drop the unaligned photos there. Align the photos
in the new Camera Group. Then align all Camera Groups.
2. Optimize. Next step is to optimize the photo alignment, removing the worst points in
sparse cloud. The goal is to remove error from the project and have a set of very
accurate tie points, high quality camera calibration, and image positioning. The goal
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is NOT to have a huge number of tie points, so do not panic if you see your points
quickly disappearing through the optimization process or you need to delete a
bunch of photos! Technically, you’re optimizing to achieve a low RMSE value (root
mean square error… just some statistics) for the project and have a minimum of 150-
200 tie points on each image. As you go through the following steps, check how your
photos are doing by switching from the Workspace Pane to the Reference pane. In
the top window, sort by projections, (you’ll probably need to expand the window and
drag both Projections column and Error column to the left). If any photo goes below
150 you can’t use that photo. You can check that photo by double clicking on it in the
Reference pane. If it is blurry, delete it from the project. If there are duplicates, delete
one from the project.
1. Go to the Tools menu and click on Optimize Cameras. Click OK with default
settings.
2. Go to Model menu and click on Gradual Selection and make the following
selections: Criterion: Reconstruction uncertainty Level: 10
This will select several points. Go to Edit menu and click Delete Selection. (It might
look like A LOT of points are selected. That is OK).
3. Go to the Tools menu and click on Optimize Cameras. Click OK with default settings.
Check your projections in the Reference pane.
4. Go to Model menu and click on Gradual Selection and make the following
selections:
Criterion: Projection accuracy
Level: 2.5 (between 2 and 3)
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( )
This will select points. Go to Edit menu and click Delete Selection. (Again, it might
look like A LOT of points are selected. That is OK). Check your Projections numbers in
the Reference pane, remembering to re-sort them. Delete any blurry or duplicate
images.
5. Go to the Tools menu and click on Optimize Cameras. Click OK with default settings.
Check your projections in the Reference pane again.
6. Repeat the Projection accuracy one more time for a total of 2 times. OPTIONAL: If
you’re using scales, at this point you can set the scale bar accuracy. On the
Reference pane, click the , to pull up the Reference pane settings menu.
7. Go to Model menu and click on Gradual Selection and make the following
selections:
Criterion : Reconstruction uncertainty
Level: 10
8. Go to the Tools menu and click on Optimize Cameras. Select all of the boxes in
General. Don’t worry if some are grayed out.
9. At this point, in your Reference pane you want to check your projections and take a
look at the Error (pix) column—the root mean square reprojection error. You can also
check the overall RMS reprojection error for your project by right-clicking on the
chunk and choosing show info. You want the RMS reprojection error to be about 0.1
If any of the Errors are greater than .3, repeat the previous 3 steps—Reconstruction
uncertainty and Optimize Cameras—until all pixels above .3 have been removed.
These error measure uncertainty, and whether you’re able to hit these low numbers
will depend on the quality of your images, camera angles etc.
1. Go to the Work ow menu and click on Build Dense Cloud. In the pop-up window
select the following:
Quality: High
Depth Filtering: Aggressive
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When this is done processing, check out your dense cloud (double click on it in
Workspace to get it to appear in your Model pane.
2. Go to the Work ow menu and click on Build Mesh. In the pop-up window select the
following:
Source data: Dense cloud
Surface type: Arbitrary (3D)
Quality: High
Face count: High
Note: The previous parameters may change depend on what you’re planning on
doing with your model. For example, if you want to use it in VR, use a lower face
count. These values also in uence processing time, so plan accordingly. You can
always duplicate your chunk and test out di erent parameters.
3. Go to the Work ow menu and click on Build Texture. You can accept the defaults for
building the texture, but they should be as follows:
Mapping mode: Generic
Blending mode: Mosaic
Texture size/count: 4096 x 1
If you are interested in printing your new 3D object please check out the Scholars’ Lab
Makerspace! Check out Abhishek’s series of postings on other ways to create 3D content
for VR and AR and how to add them to a Steam VR environment.
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