If you've ever wanted to develop your own 3D scans with photogrammetry, today we're going to be looking at one of the best free tools for the job.

Meshroom is an open-source program that allows you to turn a series of photos into a high-res 3D model using an advanced "photogrammetric computer vision framework" from Alicevision.

Meshroom is compatible with almost any 3D workflow, and plugins are available for deeper integration with Blender, Maya, Houdini, and more. What’s great about this technique is you’ll not only be generating a 3D mesh of your object, you’ll also have the ability to bring your model to life with your own custom photogrammetry data.

First, you’ll need to take a lot of high-res still photos of the object you want to scan. The video below gives a great demonstration of the angles and points you’ll want to capture, so be sure to check it out.

While 3D LiDAR scanners have traditionally been great tools for generating 3D meshes, machine learning has advanced to the point that 3D data can be extrapolated from mere images, given you have enough photos of the subject. 

LiDAR does still provide a high level of 3D data quickly, though, and with the inclusion of it in newer mobile devices, it’s easy to see a future where LiDAR and photogrammetry capabilities will be accessible to anyone with a phone.

The longest part of this operation is running your photos through Meshroom’s reconstruction process. Depending on the detail in your scene (and your system resources), you could easily be looking at an hour or more to complete the full reconstruction.

The quality of your scan is dependent on several factors:

•Camera Resolution

•Even lighting and solid exposure

•No blurry frames

•A comprehensive photo collection of your subject in 360 degrees

•Avoid reflective/transparent objects

Once you’ve got your 3D render from Meshroom, there are several steps you can take to optimize it for production. The video below explains how to ensure your textures are properly mapped, how to minimize your polygon count, and how to build a solid framework for achieving consistent results for each scan.

A great tip mentioned is that, unless you want to have Meshroom take care of applying a rough texture automatically, you can stop the reconstruction process as soon as it reaches the “texturing” node, which can save a significant amount of time. This of course means you’ll need to do the texturing work yourself, but if you want the best results, you’ll want to do that anyway.

Depending on the context of your scene, you may want to take your real-world 3D assets and composite them into a real-world background. This technique can give your VFX a deeper sense of realism than if you were compositing your model into a traditional 3D scene.

If you have access to a 360 camera, you can have an incredible advantage of building hyper-realistic scenes that offer much greater flexibility and believability by using your camera to capture an HDRI map. 

This gives your model the correct environmental lighting. In the example above, a traditional high-res photo was taken and paired with a 360 HDRI map, for an optimum balance between resolution and lighting.

We've covered some best practices on HDRI before, so be sure to check out this article to learn more.

You may have heard of display.land, a revolutionary 3D scanning mobile platform. While it mobilized and simplified a lot of 3D scanning work, it was unfortunately shut down in 2020 (although, the developers have hinted at big plans for a future project). Meshroom is a great, albeit much more advanced, alternative.

A premium option for 3D scanning is RealityCapture, and you can find several great resources that showcase how powerful their program is. Interestingly enough, Epic Games just announced their acquisition of RealityCapture, so you can bet it will be just another reason to dive into the Unreal Engine once they further integrate it into their revolutionary game engine. 

Creating your own 3D assets allows you to have complete customization over your project, add a heightened sense of realism with photogrammetry, and give you maximum creative control over every aspect of your work. It’s also so cool to know that once you’ve scanned and optimized your object, it’s available to use in any video game engine or VFX software.

Meshroom doesn't require any expensive hardware or software. And the ability to reconstruct, texture, and refine your photogrammetric model, then seamlessly import into your preferred software, makes it an incredibly valuable tool to learn.

Download Meshroom and get started today!

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