I spent hundreds of hours putting together cave and outdoor scenes using my 3-month RC license. There were some areas where it beats any other program out there hands-down – mostly the alignment is faster and there are fewer stray points in the sparse cloud.
For large nature scenes, I found RC is ridiculously labor-intensive to use and this led me to switch back to PhotoScan. The tie point system is pretty good, but nearly impossible to use when you have a thousand photos and there’s no way to look through them to find which images you’re going to tie. Lassoing points and using “find images” gets me partway there, but then I’m left with ~10 selected images and have to do some elaborate dance of viewing four at a time, and then I lose the selection when I switch over to the other component and it’s all a real pain.
I’m willing to try one more time, once RC releases a new version which might work for my purposes. Ideally, I’d like to be able to select tie points directly on the sparse point cloud rather than in photos. That way I don’t have to figure out which few of my 2000 photos need manual tie points when I’m left with two separate components. I’d also like a reasonable way to e.g. quickly flip through all of the images in one component. The “color system” is very weird and limiting. Whoever thought it was a good idea to make a program designed to process thousands of images but which can only display 4 at a time (with no way to use the keyboard to flip through images) needs to think again.
Anyway, I’d be interested in any info on when a version of RC will come out that might worth another try. I’m confident that the RC team can deliver (they’ve already fixed > 10 bugs / feature requests I wanted) and I just hope it’s sooner rather than later!
Also the 3D browser is terrible. It has no way to control the roll axis or move the camera orbit center. That’s the one bug I’ve brought up which none of the RC people on the forum seem to quite understand, which is crazy.
Hi Aaron Curtis
just a quick note, when you have selection, then you can use ARROW keys to change an image ( from that selection )
as for the actual tie control points (CPs), it’s all about experience, and I can say I’ve never needed to use more than 4 images, it’s about proper control point placement.
In short, in the inspected area of interest, look for possible control points ( similarity to other images ) and place them in ONE image, say all 4-5 CPs, and just then change the images to add the CPs in particular (remaining ) images, this way it’s much more efficient than trying to have 4 images on the screen and changing them even in different components…
First adding CPs in one component and just then switching to other ones ( to save time on reload + not losing selection etc. )
The key here is the real experience, doing it on large scale needs very good planning…
Hi Wishgranter, I’m very interested in this arrow keys thing. I just tried on a friend’s license but can’t get it to work. Can you explain more?
As for having to place lots of control points on one image before switching to the next, this is a reasonable thing to do with, say, a house, but very very difficult for a big cliff where you are using cracks that all look exactly the same. Nearly impossible remember or write down which one is which as you switch between images so it would be much easier if you could do one control point on multiple images, and then do the next.
Hi Aaron Curtis
when you have a selection of cameras, click in the particular 2D view ( so that it’s ACTIVE) and use the left or right ARROW key to flip images through the selection…
From my experience it’s better to place few control points in one image and then place them in the remaining images… try it…
WOW, that makes an enormous difference in the usability!!
And wow, the Help has improved by leaps and bounds. Now if only the UI would become sensible (especially the 3D UI, which still seems to have no way to roll), maybe I will get myself another license. The colors thing is still a really clunky, stupid, system, but with the arrow key things I can just about put up with it.
In case anyone is wondering why I’m still posting about RC, it’s because I am using a license I convinced my institution to buy. My personal license expired weeks ago. My institution’s license will expire soon too and I am really on the edge about recommending that they renew… the SfM engine in RC is the best I’ve used and RC is consistently improving… just a question of whether to continue putting up with the UI and spotty customer service…