Scanning Buildings Using a Drone
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- Опубліковано 22 лип 2024
- Come with me on a short journey where we scan the Canadian Center for Architecture in Montreal using nothing more but a drone.
My name is Daniel Kuzev, and I am one semester away from finishing my master's degree in architecture from McGill University. I came to Montreal 10 years ago and I want to use this platform to further understand and appreciate the city I've been calling Home.
In this tutorial, you'll learn how to quickly and simply create a 3D model, both in mesh and point cloud, of any building using the most basic drone. Enjoy!
-- TIMESTAMPS --
00:00 Photogrammetry in a nutshell
03:12 The Drone
05:02 CCA Introduction
06:17 Metashape Tutorial
24:50 Rhino rendering
25:47 Outro
-- LINKS --
Voice Actor: KIril Mitev www.imdb.com/name/nm9937232/
Metashape: www.agisoft.com/downloads/ins...
CCA: Buildings and Gardens: www.cca.qc.ca/en/events/34383...
DJI Mavic Mini 2: www.dji.com/ca/mini-2
600...? I meant to say 1300+ views. Hey, for some creators this is nothing, but I consider it as a blow-up! Thanks for all the support and the prospect that it helped some of you makes it even sweeter
Woot woot
Great job Daniel!
Thanks mate! I appreciate it
Thanks Daniel - I have not be using Metashape for the long, but each time I look at another video, I pick up more things. Learned some new stuff yesterday and learned a few more things today.
I can’t be happier reading this. I’ve been thinking of making a better tutorial in which I show patterns to fly the drone for optimal results as well. And streamlining the process. Should be up in a couple of weeks. Cheers
Wow! Great work you have! Thank you for sharing and keep safe.
Thank you for sharing I would love to see more.
Daniel my man, I appreciate all the work you put in to this, It was informative, and entertaining at the same time. Thank you kindly! Still waiting for the follow ups. I'm sure I can learn a lot more.
Thank you for the kind fords. I’ve moved temporarily in the laser scanning space and plan on picking up drone photogrammetry again once the weather allows here in Montreal.
Браво!! 🙌🏻
Благодарско! 😊
you pretty much nailed it. very good for the first try
Thanks mate. I know it screams "First Try", but things are starting to get better.
Thanks Daniel. Will give it a try. I thought I had to paue the drone every few seconds- what a drag!
Lucky for you, you don’t have to 😉
Amazing video, congratulations! It helped a lot.
I am happy to hear that!
good editing, good volume mixing, fun personality flair mixed into the video, just all around well done mate
I’m glad you noticed mate. I appreciate it 🙏🏼
Great video! Thank you so much!
Hey Juan. I am happy it was helpful.
Excellent tutorial, I've been looking for a video showing how to get better results by filtering by confidence. Most tutorials just show the standard workflow and if you work with drones with rolling shutters you tend to get a lot of noise, it's great your tutorial shows how to clean this up. Great job keep them coming
Thanks Colm! And yeah, cleaning by confidence is my favourite way of cleaning tree canopies. I literally just finished a project for a classmate of mine and the trees were gone in 2 seconds.
To fix the rolling shutter issue, I try to shoot at at least 1/200 sec at 2second intervals. And you can also run all photos through Lightroom to tame the highlights, bring the shadow up, reduce the contrast and bump the “texture” slider. It works miracles.
Great advice, maybe that could be a subject for your next tutorial?
My intention precisely.
@@danielkuzev4992 Hi Daniel. FYI, i think someone running a scam with your account, i got an email saying i won a DJI mini 3 from your site but i've never entered a competition.
@@nilracmloc Hey, I’m sorry this is happening. There was a scam account messaging people here in the comment section, and I blocked it.
Could you message me in private with the email you got the message from so I can report it to UA-cam? You can message me on IG
Great stuff mate, keep it up
Thanks, Luka! Will most definitely do!
Love your energy
Thanks mate
great overview - nice speed
Thanks Gary. I appreciate it! ☺️
Great video, thanks for making and sharing this! I just got a DJI Mini 3 and plan to use it for a spot of photogrammetry. The ability to do these techniques has really come on leaps and bounds since I did my photographic science degree and we were taking measurements from old WWII aerial images!
Wow… that sounds amazing.
@@danielkuzev4992 - It was pretty cool. We were taught by a guy who not only had written many photographic books but also clearly had some sort of photographic aerial analysis background that he didn’t like to discuss much, perhaps due to the nature of who he’d probably worked with.
@@daveys haha that check out
Great job Daniel
Thanks mate! It means a lot considering you’re also into photogrammetry! 🙏🏼
@@danielkuzev4992 thanks for comment :)
Just got a mavic mini, your video is elite my friend.
I’m glad you found it useful. Cheers
this was SUPER AWESOME and informative THANK YOU !!!! a thing that is worth mentioning is the Agisoft Delighter !!! after all of what you did, put the building in there and it tryes to remove the shadows because that is a problem when you try to render the model
Hey Андрей, I’m glad you found it informative. And you’re absolutely right. I’m currently working on something for our office and delighting will be the next step. I can’t wait to try it out.
nice man need another part
600+ views! This is insane. Than you all and I hope it was useful to those who are into drone photogrammetry!
А така брат. Напред и нагоре!!
@@novotonormalno3390 Винаги!
Really good video. I didn't know that the DJI mini was capable for this😅
Keep up the good work🙂
Thanks mate. It’s kinda impressive what can come out of it, but keep in mind that it can’t guarantee you anything resembling a survey precision (you’d need an RTK drone for this)
I’m happy you found it interesting :)
Много полезно, благодаря!
New sub!!!
Ха, Българска аудитория! Радвам се, че си го намерил за полезен! ;)
Great video man! Exactly what I was looking for. I feel like I can use meta shape confidently now and be more productive. I just got mapping down with Dronelink over the last few days and this is my next step. Btw, your voice is fine, ditch the actors and save the cash lol. But seriously, thanks man!
Hey mate. I’m supper happy to know you’re feeling more confident in using the software. I also need to give a try to Dronelink.
I also appreciate your comment about the voiceover. The guy who did it is one of my closest friends so it was a neat way to shout him out haha. Cheers!
Very good tutorial.
Thanks mate. I’m happy it was useful 😊
@@danielkuzev4992 That moment when you find a new and interesting UA-cam channel. It will be an interesting and long night. 😁
@@mihaicosmin866 haha, don’t neglect your sleep though. Cheers ;)
Very useful
Hey, I’m glad you found it such. 😊
Thank you! Could you please make a video about how to export the orthogonal views of each facade in scale? It would be nice to have at least line-made contours. Cheers!
Haha,the voiceover was dope! Thanks for the tutorial! Have you worked with classes? I wonder if you need to spend all this time computing things like the grass, streets, etc when creating the mesh. I guess you’d want most of the detail in the building and not the surroundings….
See, this is something I’m currently playing with… because I don’t need all that detail in the grass and street, as I will be replacing them. Will keep you posted!
Wonderful, wonderful video with a lot of information of 3d processing. Did you use apps like dronedeploy or such for taking photos? I was wondering for drones as Mavic Air 2 or Mavic Mini, many of these mapping apps are not compatible. What can be done to make a perfect flight plan? And any advice regarding manual flight plans?
For the mini 1 or the mini 3, nothing (as far as I can tell) can manipulate them. I’ve been going manual mode while taking interval photos. It is more laborious than having a pre-planned mission, but it does the job. Just make sure to have at least 70% overlap between photos and fly slowly. That usually does it.
I’m running into an issue where DJI doesn’t allow you to shoot at intervals shorter than 2 seconds. Any way to go around this?
Yeah, I have the same problem… as I can’t use 3rd party software with the Mini, I just fly slow in Cinematic mode 😂… and have a high shutter speed. Just making sure I get as much overlap as possible.
@@danielkuzev4992 which software are you using for shooting?
Honestly first technical video I have fully watched! Question, Daniel? Can video game developers use this to make hyper realistic models of cities? Will it be too heavy for a video game or will it be too heavy to play for a consumer PC? This was insanely cool! Please answer meeee I’m a fan!
They already use this to model buildings and objects. Megascans is one example where all they do is scan models and textures, and later put them in games. There are also ways to “simplify” the model and adapt it to gaming without losing detail.
Games like MS Flight Simulator use photogrammetry to represent some of the Citys in the world like New York, Vienna etc.. It truely looks amazing!
This is some really intresting stuff, nice to stumble on a fellow montrealer. I just got a mini 3 pro, and tested this out yesterday, did a hyperlapse taking a photo every 2 seconds, only did a small section and the results were great. Whats your process of deciding how many pics you are going to take, closer to the building would take more pics to cover but much better detail, or is there a diminishing returns?
Hey Marc. It depends on my objective. Personally, I go by the motto that there are never too many photos (especially when they are 12MP) so lately I would just empty all batteries while taking photos.
I think that once you get to pre-planned maps with a more serious drone, then you can define a distance from object, image overlap and simply press play. (Here I’m referring to Metashape’s ability to create missions for you)
Interesting. Did you fly the drone and take the photos manually or were you able to set waypoints and/or a mission plan for this?
There are no waypoints on the Mini, unfortunately. So I just set the timer to 2sec and started flying around slowly to ensure enough overlap between the photos.
Which file extension (.obj, .dxf, etc) do you find the most useful when trying to import a 3d model into Revit? I get mixed up with all of the file types you are able to extract from Metashape.
I've seen other videos that suggest going through ReCap to create a .rcp or .rcs to use in Revit. This is the process that gets tricky to me, just trying to figure out which file types to export from metashape and into Revit (or one software to the next). Thanks.
Hey Joe,
I never import 3D files into Revit. In general, Revit isn`t that great with meshes imported from other softwares (except for Rhino nurbs surfaces... those it loves). The main difference between all the formats you mentioned and an .rcp file is that inside the .rcp you DON`T have a 3D model, but just a point cloud. And to be honest with you, if I need to model something in revit, I always go through a point cloud.
In short; export as an .e57 format (make sure you use meters as your local system), start a new Recap project, import the .e57, wait for it it process, and you should be good to go.
@@danielkuzev4992 thanks for the feedback. I am just trying to think of ways we can use drones where I work (Arch/Engr design firm). For example, when we do an expansion project to an existing building, and there is no model (or sometimes even drawings) for that building, or architects are modeling that from scratch sometimes to show finished renderings to the client, so they can see what it will look like with existing and new construction when complete. I was wondering if some data captured with a drone (or any scanner) could at least cut down on that time instead of starting from scratch. I am not sure if they would be able to use a point cloud to start that process.... maybe so.
Amaaaazing 🙌🏼
Btw, would more chunks make it longer to compute?
Gracias ☺️
And yes… but chunks are different sets of data. You can have a rough outline of the site with only 100 photos for instance. And then another chunk with 800 photos for the detailed version.
Super cool! What does the accuracy look like for this kind of approach? I’m curious if it would be handy for folks like stonemasons producing estimates.
Hi Edward. From what I have seen so far (always keeping the Mini in mind) that it can be pretty accurate. However, a report from Metashape tells me that the precision of the location of each photo can be anywhere from a foot to several meters. It is important to keep in mind that there is a difference between tolerance and what it actually is. Even if the tolerance is large, you could still have meaningful results. One thing you can do is to have a scale bar in your scan and put the distance between the two ends manually. Alternatively, you can use two points far away from each other and measure the distance with a laser and then force metashape to keep that distance.
That’s helpful to know! I’ve got to try this out for myself to learn more.
AMAZING TUTORIAL! I have been looking for this type of things to do with 3D models!!!! I will practice more with Metashape isntead of Pix4D. btw you did a very good job with the storytelling and also with the tutorial.
I would like to learn more about the postprocessing ... like remodeling structures on sketchUp, revit, autocad, Luminar, even Unreal Engine hahaha create 3D models for landscape my projects.
Hey mate. I’m super happy to know you enjoyed the tutorial and the story of the site. To be honest, I’ve perfected my methods in terms of scanning and processing over the past few months. I’m currently finishing up my masters, and as soon as it is done, I can’t wait to cover a bunch of topics… especially post processing and the ways you can integrate a point cloud into CAD.
@@danielkuzev4992 sounds like a LiDAR drone is in your future!
@@airwebdigital there are plenty of drones in my near future haha. I can’t begin to explain how eager I am to get my license in the upcoming months and to upgrade to something more serious than the original Mini.
@@danielkuzev4992 that’s awesome man!! Get something with a mechanical shutter for sure, that’s what we use for more scans a day since flights can be done faster (we acquire data for 3D models for cell phone tower inspections)
@@airwebdigital So here is a question for you. Say I have a shutter speed of 1/200 or faster and my image is properly exposed. Why should I care for a mechanical shutter? I feel like I can keep a continuous flight, be it slowly. And I don't have to move, stop, shoot, move , stop, shoot, etc. Thanks!
what drone mapping (photogrammetry) software did you use to get photos around the building not just from a birds eye view?
Hey Breezy. It all comes from manually controlling the drone. I’m using the very first Mini and, as far as I know, there is no way to pre-program a path for it ;(
@@danielkuzev4992 that’s crazy! My assumption is this would take hours to capture? I want to do similar to this and upload to unreal engine 5. I have the mini 2 and no hand held camera. I guess we just give it a shot! Brilliant helpful vid thank you
@@breezyhdtv2129 you’d be surprised how fast it goes. Put your drone in Timelapse mode it will take one photo each 2 seconds. From there just move slowly around the building.
@@danielkuzev4992 ah thats a brilliant tip thank you so much didnt think of that!
Hello, i am in search for an method to measure exactly dimensions of an buildings all details.
Can this be done by scanning from a drone?
The purpose is to 3d print that building most possible detailed.
Regards
Tore from Sweden
Hey Tore, you can measure from a model, if shot with a drone. I have a video coming out in a few weeks about increasing the precision of a point cloud or a mesh. What I discovered is that, given I am using just a DJI Mini, out of the box, without calibration, it can be off by about 2cm over the span of 30m. For 3D printing it should do the job
Thanks for the answer.
I'm looking forward to your next video.
Do you recommend this software over reality capture. This looks easier
I loved this, thanks for your insights. I feel like the pace was on point. One thing: I only have a 1080p screen on my tablet which made reading the text in the editing program quite difficult.
I’m glad you found it useful! Also, thanks for the feedback! I’ll think about if there is anything I can do to make it easier on FHD screens
@@danielkuzev4992 I tried for the first time today, keeping in mind some of your tips. I can't share publicly, but I am blown away by the results.Thanks :)
Woot woot. Supper happy to know it worked out well and I was able to help. You should absolutely post a link here in the comments section when you publish it online! #showitoff
Can the drone keeping moving when taking photos?
Hey Marty. Absolutely. This is what I do every time. Just make sure to set up a fast shutter speed to ensure straight images... say 1/400sec.
Can you export into an STL or OBJ file?
Hey Dean. Yes you can. BUT!!! But if you plan on 3D printing, I'd consider going through an external software like Rhino or Blender to scale down appropriately. Cheers!
thankyou bro, really well cpmprenhesive vid.
Thanks mate. I am glad it was useful! :)
Excellent content. How to open the model created in sketchup?
Hey Joao. Yes you can but I can’t promise you the performance will remain the same. There are A LOT of triangles by the end! But you can export in .fbx format and include the texture ;)
Hey Daniel, thanks for the tutorial! I wonder if you’ve ever used realitycapture? It seems to be performing slightly faster, no? Keep it up! 👏
My pleasure ☺️. Hmmm, I have, but I am not super happy with it. Maybe it’s just me, but I never end up with one signal segment. I always need to stitch something up manually. Metashape has been a blast so far 😂
@@danielkuzev4992 and when you end up with several components in RealityCapture after aligning pictures (on virtually every project I've tried) the process of adding tie/control points is very painful... It's much easier in metashape, especially considering that most of the time it's able to produce a single block from the get go...
What kind of computer is required for such a large point cloud? What if you have a lot of jobs?
Could several flights be added as days progress? If I want to map my whole city, scale it down and 3d print it as a souvenir, is that possible with this method?
The limiting factor I hit at some point was not enough RAM. But I’m talking about 2200 photos, 24MP each (which might be an overkill). This shot up to 85GB of Ram. If I was using only the drone photos, 12MP each, 32GB was enough.
Metashape would use everything there is on your computer. It seems, however, that you don’t benefit from anything above 12cores. So faster cores are better than many cores.
I’d challenge the level of detail you need for 3D printing. How big is your printer’s nozzle? How tall of layer do you plan on making? A lot of detail will be lost in 3D printing by default, especially when it comes to a cityscape.
hi bro ... pls can you tell how you planned for image capturing . By any software or by manual...type
In my case I go manual. I’ll make a video on it as soon as the weather allows, but here are some pointers:
I go above looking down and I go back and forth till I cover everything I need.
Then I go parallel to the facade and cover all of them.
And then I go 45 degrees to the facade so I get the inside of window frames and doors
U have any proper plan on plying or sketch for fixed elevation path and how did you took the reference point for same area with different elevation
@@danielkuzev4992 i texted in Instagram also can we connect there
Pls
Hi mmmmm, so if the drone took a video, how did it get converted to photographs?
Ho Jose,
The drone did not take a video. It took a series of photos. I set it to an interval shooting so it took a photo every 3 seconds. Otherwise, you can always put a vide inside Premiere Pro and export each frame. I am just not sure how many thousands of images you will end up with.
Great video!! How many photos did you take?
Hey Lennart. I took 478 photos and 477 were aligned successfully.
Can these models be converted to something 3d printable?
Oh absolutely. Just make sure it is a closed mesh rather than an open one. You can do this either in Rhino or in Blender (if you’re looking for a free version)
@@danielkuzev4992 thank you very much for the reply and the tips!
Woow...man...I'm glad that you do what you do...maybe it sound stupid. I'm doing these things also, but you explained that in much more professional...In fact something like that I need to do for my master work. Too shame for UA-cam because it says, btw...this is on mine channel too...that you're registered at January, 1.st, 2014. because your first video was (I mean first public video) a year ago...that does not means that you started your channel from year 2014. Don't know but someone like me wants to be just absolutely true. Maybe it's a bug from UA-cam...we never knew.
Will Metashape Standard Edition do what you have shown here?
To be honest, I am not sure. It's been a while I haven't checked the comparison sheet.
@@danielkuzev4992 have you tried Maps Made Easy (Map Pilot Pro)? I flew a quick mission around my house today and am trying to figure out which 3d file I should download and how I cab view it. For now, I dumped them in metashape from your link and am following your steps. It's been running about 6 hrs now, so just waiting for it to finish and then I'll chop it down as you showed here. Thanks for the content.
@@JoeBoone82 I havent tried it yet because my drone isn't compatible.
One thing you could do to reduce the time is set the dense point cloud quality to medium... unless you're going for an insane amount of detail, it will do you pretty well.
@@danielkuzev4992 the Maps Made Easy worked with the Mini 2. In metashape did you get all of the blue areas above your 3d model? They appear to be the camera/drone shot locations. I'm not sure how to turn that off.
Also, did you ever try exporting into Revit? Where I get confused with that is what type of file (extension types) to export from metashape and to import into Revit.
Hey. I'm happy to hear back from you with good news. I wish I could use Maps Made Easy, but I don't have a supported drone... Getting there haha
- It is normal to get the blue squares. Those are the camera locations. On the top right, in the ribbon, there is a camera icon you can click to turn them off.
- Yes, you can export to Revit, and it works like charm. The easiest way to export without worrying about coordinate systems is the following. Right-Click on your chunk, Export, Export Points, select your name and location, use .e57, and under Coordinate System select "Local Coordinates (m)". This will export your cloud. Before you can put it in Revit, you will have to import it into ReCap, and then link the ReCap file into Revit. And it works great! I've used it on many projects. You can see it here:
ua-cam.com/video/yv_Y4lqLB_I/v-deo.html at 6:43 I show an example (not the process though, sorry). And then at 8:20 I show a model in ReCap.
What is the most affordable/precise drone to do this?
Precise… anything with an RTK GPS.
Affordable… any of the Minis by DJI
Best… hmm anything with at least 20mp camera that can be pre-programmed
@@danielkuzev4992 dji mini 2? 3?
@@coacollective691 I use the 3 now and it’s been pretty neat.
On the expensive side there is the Partot AI… what a beast of a drone… made specifically for photogrammetry
Good Tutorial! ... is possible to share your drone flight, so I can n attempt the steps you did?
Still want a drone flight? I got a bunch of photos of my house if u wanna model that
Hey Whata, you mean the photos or the flight path?
Can you show how to decimate everything but not the roof?
um maybe u can duplicate model, select the roof to delete it, and u can decimate the others part. So basically u hv two parts, high poly roof and low poly body building.
*optional: i think its easy if u already export to 3d software and decimate on it
What is your PC spec?
Hey Jon. At the time of recording it was:
i7 7700k
RTX 3080
32GB Ram.
I was looking into best CPU’s for Metashape and it turns out that you don’t see any benefit above 12 cores. It seems like Metashape benefits from high clock speed.
Great video mate! Did you change anything on your computer after the video? Any upgrades? Did you notice any huge improvements?@@danielkuzev4992
I like your video very much. But you zoom into the menus of the programs you are using
You should do tutorial with opensoure softwares.
I hear you. Yet there are plenty of softwares with reduced prices for students (commercial licenses mind you) which can be used for freelancing. But I'll try to incorporate some in the next one ;)
❤❤❣❣💘💘
i'm subscriber # 420 😶🌫
Ha, you are! Cheers mate 💨
Was a good example but too fast. Thank you
योर डिवाइस पॉसिबल ट्रेजर हंटिंग
I wish I understood, Rama. I have English, French and Bulgarian you could chose from 😂. Cheers
Hopefully you've dropped the Peter McKinnon shtick. I get it, but develop your own.
Also, the voice actor segment was painful.
I’ll put some more just for you in the next one 😘
i tried to watch it but too much unnecessary dialog , im sorry
I hear you mate, and I appreciate your feedback. I'm thinking of a way to make the next tutorials convenient for both people who want to get things done fast, and for those who enjoy a story! Cheers!
What a load of crap!!!
Could you elaborate, mate? Always open to suggestions 😉
Hi Daniel, great video! My name is also Daniel, also an architect, also flying drones, also 3D modelling, also in Montreal, also making youtube videos, but not as cool as yours. Quick tip for your viewers looking for a way to better scan buildings for 3D using Mini 1. Check out Dronelink. Let's grab a beer someday!
Well well, hello fellow architect. Thanks for the complement and the recommendation! I plan on getting my drone license early next year and getting a better drone, so I will definitely give Dronelink a try!
Спасибо
My pleasure ☺️
Metashape vs pix4d mapper vs dronedeploy???
Tbh, I haven’t tried the other ones. I’m getting an rtk drone this summer that can me controlled through drone deploy and I’m excited in trying it out. So far, Metashape has been a blast and they just added the ability to align drone scans with terrestrial LiDAR scans and I might just stay in that environment for a while more.