Export

Exporting Triangulations

Instead of the internal MVS algorithms (PMVS, MVE) also other MVS tools can be used. Currently the following MVS tools are supported:

The first three are free only for personal or research use, the first two only run on Windows and require a Nvidia graphics card. The last one, SURE, is a commercial tool, an evaluation license is available.

To export the triangulation, select it in the project tree and click on "Export to external MVS". Select a directory, preferrably an empty one. Regard3D will create three directories below it, one is called "CMPMVS", one "meshrecon", and "OpenMVS".

To run CMPMVS, open a command window in the newly created directory, one above CMPMVS. Issue the following commands:

CD \Path\To\export\dir
SET PATH=%PATH%;C:\Path\To\CMPMVS\bin
CMPMVS.exe CMPMVS\01_mvs_firstRun.ini
CMPMVS.exe CMPMVS\02_mvs_limitedScale.ini

You can adjust the settings in the ini files. For documentation of the parameters, see the README.txt and the default_README.txt in the ini-directory of the CMPMVS distribution.

To run MeshRecon, open a command window in the meshrecon directory and issue the following commands:

CD \Path\to\export\dir\meshrecon
SET PATH=%PATH%;C:\Path\to\MeshRecon\bin
MeshRecon_init.exe output.sfm MESH_init.ply
MeshRecon_refine.exe output.sfm MESH_init.ply MESH_refine.ply 0

To run OpenMVS, open a command window in the OpenMVS directory and issue the following commands:

CD \Path\to\export\dir\OpenMVS
SET PATH=%PATH%;C:\Path\to\OpenMVS\bin
DensifyPointCloud -i scene.mvs -o dense.mvs
ReconstructMesh -i dense.mvs -o scene_dense.mvs
TextureMesh -i scene_dense.mvs -o scene_dense_mesh.mvs

To run SURE, open a command window in the SURE directory and issue the following commands:

CD \Path\to\export\dir\SURE
SET PATH=%PATH%;C:\Program Files\SURE
SURE -img img -ori ori -basepath t -scenario DEFAULT -pyr 1 -mesh_texturing_export -no_update -gpu

 

Please read and respect the license restrictions of these software packages.

 

Exporting Densifications

A dense point cloud can be exported in two ways:

  • As a pure point cloud, either in PLY (Stanford Polygon File Format) or PCD (PCL format)
  • As a MeshLab project with point cloud and camera information

The first one can be reached by selecting a Densification in the project tree and selecting "Export point cloud" and then choosing an export path and file name. The second one can be reached by choosing "Export scene to MeshLab" and then choosing a (preferrably empty) directory.

To further process the point cloud in MeshLab, please see the documentation of MeshLab. Here is a possible approach:

  • Start MeshLab and open the exported MeshLab scene (called "sceneMeshlab.mlp").
  • If necessary, edit the point cloud with the tools of MeshLab
  • Create a surface: Choose the menu Filters -> "Remeshing, Simplification and Reconstruction" -> "Surface Reconstruction: Poisson". Enter the desired parameters, for example 9, 6, 1, 1
  • Remove the undesired parts of the surface with MeshLab's tools
  • Select the Poisson mesh in the layer dialog
  • Create a texture by choosing the menu Filters -> Texture -> "Parameterization + Texturing from registered rasters", edit the required parameters
  • Save the resulted mesh

 

Exporting Surfaces

Depending on the type of the surface, surfaces can be exported either as OBJ file (Alias Wavefront Object File Format) or PLY (Stanford Polygon File Format). Textured surfaces can only be exported in OBJ format, while surfaces with colored vertices can be exported as PLY or OBJ.

To export a surface, select it in the project tree and choose "Export surface". Textured surfaces require 3 files: an .obj file (containing the 3D coordinates of the vertices, the vertex indices of the surfaces and the UV coordinates of the vertices in the texture), a .mtl file (containing the material definitions) and one (or more) .png file containing the texture.