Can i use a Video as Source ?

Good Morning !

So i’m about to get Reality Capture. There is only one last Question:

Is it possible to use a Video a Source (instead of Pictures) ?

Or do i have to Convert the Video Frame by Frame ?

You have to convert the video, though you will not want to use every single frame.

The quality you can achieve that way is limited and strongly depends on how badly compressed the source video is.

ffmpeg is your friend for this.

ffmpeg\bin\ffmpeg.exe -i <sourcevideo> -r <framespersecond>/1 “<outputpath>\out%%04d.png”

The Source Video itself has a very nice Quality. Here is a Sample:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VawG3vwYBzs

So how do i know which Frame i want ? Do you have a Tutorial for it ?


So thats the Command i want to use, but Windows says it cant find the File (no idea which File).

OK so i got the extract every one second. But is there a way or a Method that i only get the Pictures without Motion in it ?

You need to download ffmpeg for it to work. It does not come preinstalled. (https://www.ffmpeg.org/)

Also, the video example you linked shows a few things that are very bad. The 360° turn for instance is completely blurred and thus unusable.

As for how many frames you should extract:
That depends on how fast the camera moves. If its slow you may be fine with one frame every 1-2 seconds (0.5/1 or 1/1). If it is a bit faster you may require 2-5 frames per second.

You will see how well things align and how many components RC will create. Simply redo the extraction with more frames if needed.

 You will need to pre-screen the images before loading them into RC and remove any fade-ins and -outs as well as crossfades between scenes if there are any. Also remove any images that don’t show the content you want to scan or anything with large overlaid fixed or scrolling text.

AH ok. Yeah this was just a Test Flight :smiley:

But is there a way for ffmpeg to get the “good” pictures only ? Like the Sharp ones ?

ffmpeg simply extracts the images. It does not do any quality assessment. That is up to you.

Ok. Yeah i got FFmpeg now (the base extract). Is there a “Smart” Prog who could handle this ?

Hey apptester11,

since RC cannot do this, it is strictly speaking not really the right place here to discuss it in detail.

But if you found a solution I am sure people will appreciate a quick heads-up…  :wink:

hello, video can be used as an input since https://support.capturingreality.com/hc/en-us/articles/360019940851-Version-1-0-3-6310-RC-Release

@apptester11

If I’m not making mistake yes u can choose video as a source - RC will export frames (because the video is just sequence of frames - for example, 25 frames per second makes a video :))… Thing is that will largely depend on video resolution - for example, the 4k video will export 8MPx photos and you know for photogrammetry MPx are really important. Also, note that sharpness will affect final reconstruction… so my suggestion is after RC finish frame export go through each frame/photo and delete those that are not sharp… more things to be aware is - choose appropriate shutter speed more is better - frames/photos will be sharper. Choose 8 - 11 aperture and lovest ISO…

 

Hope I helped