Thanks Götz. I did attempt to take intermediate pictures as i moved closer and then around, but perhaps not enough.
So, overall, it sounds like what you’re suggesting is that in order to increase the quality of the model, I should focus on taking more pictures that form a tighter connection between successive shots, rather than using targets. That sounds like good advice… (thought I remain curious as to why you think the targets wouldn’t work… perhaps RC wouldn’t know apriori that there was just a single red tag, for example, and hence wouldn’t know for sure to match those two targets… that’d be a nice feature imho that could potentially reduce the need for extreme numbers of photos). The question then becomes, how to enable more photos without taking forever shooting each branch?
The challenge with this setup is that, when you rotate the branch on it’s rotating platform, you have to wait maybe 15 seconds or so for the branch sections to stop oscillating from the movement. One potential way of dealing with this would be to use a base equipped with a stepper motor to *slowly* rotate the branch, and stopping every so often (maybe 10 degrees?). That would keep the branch from oscillating, and would allow for more photos in a shorter period. (we don’t want to spend an hour taking photos - better to have each shoot done in 10-15 minutes if possible). Still not exactly sure how to move into the real closeups, as those seem to be what were failing… I can try just taking smaller steps I suppose…
Finally, to answer your specific questions, I was using a Nikon D7000 (4928 x 3264) in manual model, and using RAW output, and using high-detail reconstructions. I don’t think resolution is too much of an issue, as when you zoom in, the edges of the branch are spread across a number of pixels. So, if anything, I suspect that opening the lens up a bit (I was shooting at f22 to increase DOF) might help, as might a better lens (or perhaps even a full frame camera, but i’m not sure about that).
Thanks,
Allie