Author: Christiane Zhao, Marketing Specialist
Organisations involved: Agisoft, Weiss AG
Hardware used: Civetta 360° (Weiss AG), Phantom 3 Professional (DJI)
Software used: Metashape (Agisoft), CivettaUtility (Weiss AG)

Creating point clouds, textured meshed models and orthophotos with Weiss AG Civetta -230 megapixels 360° HDR camera

Introduction

The Civetta is an automated 360° HDR (High Dynamic Range) capturing system, that produces 360° x 180° images with 230 megapixels resolution and a 32 bit (HDR) colour depth, making it the perfect tool for photogrammetry and 3D reconstruction applications. The Civetta is used across a wide range of industries and organisations to capture high precision calibrated 360° full-spherical images.

Developed by Weiss AG in Germany now available in the 5^th version, Civettas all around the world are in daily use at clients like Shell, ATF, BP, Guardia civil, FBI, Nvidia, BMW and many more.

The system was designed to be absolutely reliable in also extreme environmental and light conditions.

The power of working with calibrated 360° images from the Civetta is that the location is captured once and can be converted to 6 different results:

Process with the CivettaUtility software:

1. Capture HDR images with 230 MPixel and 32 bit colour depth
2. Perform tonal compression to cover the light and the dark areas in one 8bit image
3. Take measurements in m or ft in 360° stereo pairs without further calibration

Process with the Metashape software:

1. Create coloured point clouds (8 bit, 32 bit)
2. Create textured 3D models (8bit, 32 bit)
3. Create orthophotos (8bit, 32 bit)

The excellent image quality and the prior calibration make the output of the Civetta the perfect basis for 3D reconstruction.

The aim of this report is to use HDR panorama images from this high precision camera, and process them with Agisoft Metashape to create a measurable 3D point cloud for documentation and reconstruction. This study shows that the Civetta is one of the most accurate and simple capturing devices to use for highly automated point cloud generation.

Content

01. Background
02. Tools used/Software used
03. Our tasks
04. Building/region
05. Challenges
06. Photo capture
07. Camera settings
08. Hour worked: Field hour/ office hours
09. General workflow
10. Deliverable
11. Conclusion
12. Acknowledgement

01. Background

This study aims to showcase and analyze Civetta’s standardized workflow to achieve a high-quality digital twin production in combination with Agisoft Metashape.

The Civetta automatically records a 230 MPixel HDR 360° within 40 seconds, with a focus area of 0.3 m / 1 ft to infinity. Agisoft were the first software developer who integrated the reconstruction functionality from 360° images in their software, based on the Civetta images provided by Weiss AG. The combination of Civetta with Metashape can provide accurate and reliable 3D point clouds for clients in oil & gas, aviation, cultural heritage, entertainment, e-training, law enforcement and more.

02. Tools / Software used

Hardware: Civetta from Weiss AG, DJI Phantom 3 Professional

Software: CivettaUtility (comes with the purchase of Civetta), Agisoft Metashape 2020

Install Agisoft Metashape : Agisoft installer

03. Our tasks

A long-term user of Weiss AG technologies has been hired to record a district of a rural area. The 3D point clouds and HDR panorama images were then used for different departments in the documentation, construction planning, urban planning and digital reconstruction. The 360° image pairs and the 3D point cloud are provided on VAM2, a web-platform to enable the end-user to investigate and take measurements of streets, doors, windows, walls and other relevant objects in the scene.

04. Building / region

– Region: Long Hu Gu Zhai, Chao Zhou, Guangdong Province, China

– Streets: The total length of all streets covered in this project is 3 KM in total. It includes seven main streets (1.5KM) and three side streets (1.5KM). There are 154 panorama pairs captured by the Civetta.

– Building: 1 ancient temple (area covered 45*57m), there are 58 panorama pairs captured by the Civetta.

05. Challenges

– 3D documentation and measurement are difficult as there are passengers, bikes and other factors disrupt the static photo capturing of the scenes.

– Difficulties in capturing the street and building of the area, due to parked vehicles, tables and other objects might block the vision.

– Lighting variance, the region was having high sun exposure with many dark areas in holes and under the roofs

– Drafters can only collect a certain amount of data and dimensions on each trip.

06. Photo capture

With the photogrammetry method, here are a few key points to address if you are considering using panorama images to produce 3D models:

1. The higher the number of photos captured, the more redundancies occur with object point overlaps. Ensure any zone has been captured by the Civetta from at least two spots. Most practical is a capture from an upper and a lower position what can be easily realised with the calibrated measurement tripod that comes with every Civetta.

2. As 360° images cover every direction the registration of 360° one to each other is very fast and accurate.

3. Using the Civetta capturing the full sphere the number of image-captures on-site is heavily reduced. It also minimized the profession and experience required for the staff in the capturing process as it is nearly impossible to forget a view.

07. Hours worked

Some of our clients work alone some work in teams of two whereas one mainly takes care to keep the area clear of people and vehicles.

Field Hours: 3 days capturing for 2 persons to capture ten streets and one building

For one street: The staff captured approximate between 17 and 20 image pairs with the Civetta, along with 100 photos captured by the drone to capture the roof topside only. Each street requires approximately one hour to capture all the data.

For the ancient temple:The staff captured 58 image pairs with the Civetta, along with 140 photos captured by the drone at the same time to cover the roofsides, not visible from the ground. The entire field work was done in 6 hours.

Office Hours, -download and processing of the 360° images: Back in the office the 212 image pairs were downloaded from the Civetta, and the backup storage. As the Civetta has an internal storage for about 800 captures only one download was necessary on location.

Back in the office the 212 image pairs were downloaded from the Civetta, and the backup storage. As the Civetta has an internal storage for about 800 captures only one download was necessary on location.

Downloading pre-processing and processing are fully automated by utilizing CivettaUtility and does not require human monitoring.

On a Standard PC (e.a.: i7, 16 GB RAM, SSD, USB 3) the download, pre-processing and post-processing steps, are ready in about 90 second per 360° end-result.

For the streets:

Agisoft Metashape requires 3 hours to process data from each street, with density points as the final output (requested by the clients). The project produced 13 point clouds; each point cloud contains more than 3 hundred millions data points.

For the ancient temple:

Agisoft Metashape requires 8 hours to process its 3D point clouds.

08. General workflow

For the 360 Panoramic Photogrammetry technique, the Civetta was positioned to have the best coverage of the structures. Typically, the distance between each measurement pair is between 5-10 meters. Civetta always acquires HDR images to cover very bright and very dark areas in a scene. The project requires capturing measurable data for 3D models and panorama images, so the panorama images were acquired by the Civetta from the same spot from the upper and lower positions.

The tripod is pre-calibrated to ensure an exact 600 mm distance between upper and lower position. It means you can add measurement values to the point cloud by adding 600 mm in the distance field when processing it with Agisoft Metashape. In addition you can take measurements in the 360° images without further calibration when working with VAM2.

The total time of 212 panorama pairs (with measurement data) captured was around 16 hours, which included setting up the camera, and the automatic capturing process operated by the Civetta itself at each spot. It does not include transportation time and the time waiting for passengers to leave the area. As a photogrammetry method, it requires to secure 60% and more overlap between the panorama images captured from different spots.

The data processing and registration were conducted using Agisoft Metashape, a high-quality software product for photogrammetric processing of digital images and generating 3D spatial data. Before uploading the photos, users can use the mask function in Metashape to cut out the bottom tripod area of the 360° images. After importing all the panorama images into Agisoft Metashape, users can input the distance values into Agisoft for a pair of panorama images captured on the same spot. Users shall assign proper camera type, a Spherical camera, for the corresponding image groups in the Camera Calibration Dialog of the Tool Menu. It goes through the general workflow of data processing, including aligning photos, building dense point clouds, mesh, texture, tiled model, digital elevation model, and export result. The result can be a sparse point cloud in the viewer with the camera positions’ position estimations indicated as bubbles.

09. Deliverables

10. Conclusion

Civetta has produced accurate colored point clouds with data processed by Agisoft Metashape. In the past 12 years, Weiss AG’s Civetta has been used by a wide range of professionals across different industries, including but not limited to Oil & Gas, Aviation, Cultural Heritage, Factory Planning/Maintenance/Re-production, as well as those in the Museum & Galleries, Gaming, and Movie industries. Within only one button on the hardware’s body, it is easy to use with almost no prerequisites on the person who uses it.

The combination of Agisoft Metashape and Civetta can help you with:

● Detailed documentation with fast scanning time
● Quality point cloud data and panorama images for reconstruction, rendering, and modeling
● A full pack of assets for digital management, maintenance, and virtual training

11. Acknowledgment

Weiss AG has been in the field of photogrammetry for more than 12 years; ever since then, Weiss AG and its users have been a group of users of the Agisoft Metashape Software to produce stunning results for a variety of purposes in their professional sectors. We sincerely appreciated Agisoft Metashape for supporting panorama images in 3D model construction, and for providing essential support and guidance for this study.

Author: Christiane Zhao, Marketing Specialist
Date: 11th January 2021

Tunnel Monitoring and Measurement

With the increasing number of tunnels built around the world, the monitoring, detection, maintenance and renovation of these tunnels are increasingly important. Tunnel projects are typically huge investments. They often have a long route mileage and involve strong concealment, factors which impose heightened quality requirements on the construction and maintenance during operation. Highly accurate 3D scanning is quickly becoming the main way to document and visualize the in-progress build condition of urban tunnel projects.

Weiss AG, a European company of experts with more than 10 years experiences in 3D scanning, provides 3D scanning and digital asset management (DAM) services to support construction groups working in tunnel design and maintenance. The use of Civetta, a 360-degree camera by Weiss AG, can generate a set of panoramic HDR images to produce a 3D model. These 3D scanners allow the user to take measurements while extracting 3D coordinates and geo-reference information in relation to each panoramic picture. With the Visual Asset Management System provided by Weiss AG, the construction and management teams can establish visual connections between multimedia files, thus enabling better communication and documentation throughout the project.

Background

Weiss AG’s reseller, Guangzhou MG Data Tech Ltd, helped the Beijing Metro Group to provide on-site terrestrial scanning services for site surveys and inspections. The initial challenge of the Beijing Metro Project was to detect issues within the water percolation of the metro tunnel in central Beijing. The main goal of this scanning project was to provide accurate as-built documentation to help engineers and architects determine precise measurements on or off-site, make structural assessments and ensure the highest standards of safety.

3D Scanner and Scanning Services

3D scanning provides a more accurate and simpler way to understand and explain the status and progress of tunnel projects. For documenting as-built conditions, the density of point clouds, meaning the density of points of reference within the environment for the program to utilize, must be high enough to produce CAD drawings, 3D mesh models and panoramic point cloud pictures. A high solution scanner is needed in underground construction such as tunnel projects. As the Beijing metro tunnel needs to detect water percolation, the scanner must have an accuracy within 0.03 mm to identify crevices in the tunnel.

Civetta is preferable to use as it provides time-efficient and accurate equipment allowing the capture of high-quality images with the press of a single button. The Civetta is a fully automated 360-degree camera that can create 32-bit HDR images. Civetta takes a mere 40 seconds to record an entire spherical image, capturing all the varying light within the scene. With an impressive accuracy of +- 2mm within a 10m distance, users can take precise measurements from the captured images via the Visual Asset Management (VAM2) platform. 

Terrestrial scanning saves hundreds of hours on planning time and prevents misspent labor. This detailed and accurate information can help the company save time and money, avoid mistakes and increase transparency between different departments in maintaining, repairing and upgrading the facility.

Processing Image-Based 3D Scan Point Clouds

After performing a 360-degree panoramic scan, the raw point cloud must be processed. CivettaProcessing was selected as the software for processing the point-cloud data, as it is a compilation software that pairs up with the Civetta camera provided by Weiss AG. It avoids compatibility problems between the software and equipment and avoid the cost of purchasing software since it is part of the package when purchasing Civetta.

CivettaProcessing supports the automatic alignment of overlapping areas of point clouds to .esr and .jpg files, as well as the use of targets to geo-reference scan data. More than five hundred scans were registered together to generate one complete model space to establish a 3D mesh model, This space was based on hundreds of sets of panoramic point cloud pictures. The HDR images taken by the Civetta includes real 3D coordinates and accurate measurement distances, so it is achievable for engineers to extract this information to use in any other system. Users can also generate the measurement details through a few clicks or connect digital files with URLs in VAM2.

The Use of Visual Asset Management Platforms to View, Edit, Manage and Share Project Assets

Good as-built documentation has the potential to be very valuable to the owners and operators of infrastructure facilities and to all stakeholders in large infrastructure projects. The as-built documentation is obtained soon after project completion, or is updated during construction, and when the documentation includes a high standard of accuracy, it has a greater number of uses in the operations phase of large facilities.

With the VAM2 innovated by the Weiss AG team, it enables client groups to generate and manage digital assets throughout the tunnel construction process through tools such as point cloud collection, section deformation analysis, dislocation analysis, tunnel and track image generation, roaming video generation and other essential tunnel-related documentation.

VAM2 is completed based on cloud technology, and all data types can be accessed via a single web browser. It includes, but is not limited to 3D models, documents, CAD data, panoramic pictures, 360 videos, audio, geo-reference, maps and much more. By establishing the links between the 3D model and other files via URLs, viewers can establish a more comprehensive and realistic understanding of the construction environment, together with the amount and quality of contributions by each team or individual member.

For some construction data that is sensitive and should not be available to the public, the team can either set authorisation restrictions on the cloud, or directly request a private package to be sent. Invitation codes or passwords can be created to secure the information on the cloud. The final product was a simple URL that could be opened and shared with other authorized project participants anywhere and at any time.

Generally, it is difficult for people without engineering background to understand the information involved in surveying reports, drawings, and engineering data. For the interest of transparency, public agencies that commission construction projects must make project information available to the government officials and to the general public. It is important to know that VAM2 does not have minimum computer system requirements, nor does it require users to have any technical skills or knowledge. VAM2 can be integrated into the traditional workflow for legal entities, and can also accelerate clear work distribution between departments or groups. Therefore, VAM2 has been used by several government agencies and legal entities across the world for the purposes of documentation and management.

Author: Christiane Zhao

Yes, of course! Agisoft Metashape/PhotoScan is the only professional 3D processing software that supports panorama as an input source. Surprising or not, Agisoft’s software application was initially developed and modified based on the 360 images produced by the Civetta camera. As our founder and CEO Dr. Weiss at Weiss AG initially pushed forward the idea to the Agsioft team years ago. In short, you can use spherical panoramas in equirectangular representation in Agisoft Metashape/PhotoScan. 

Similar to any other photogrammetry method, 3D reconstruction is based on pattern recognition, so everything has to be visible for at least two different views; this does not change for the case of panorama images.

All you need is to load images, then go to the Tools Menu -> Camera Calibration window and switch the Camera Type from Frame (default) to Spherical for the calibration group that corresponds to the panoramic images.

2. New release in Agisoft Metashape 1.7

and what does it mean to me?

Many users reported that Agisoft Metashape 1.7 has better depth map generation, out-of-core processing on GPUs, shorter process time, sufficient detail, and less noise in the resulting 3D model. Therefor, greater demand for the image quality but lower hardware requirements. 

Our technical teams tested and compared between two 3D point clouds from the same dataset but a different version of Agisoft Metashape. The result is that 1.7.0 shows a greater level of details in photogrammetry than any previous version. Yet as more objects are being recognized, we can also see a greater level of distraction on the point clouds, and it brings greater pressure if one wants to modify a dense point cloud. To deal with that, choosing an excellent automatic panorama HDR camera ensures a great quality of images and reduces the workload on dense point cloud modification.

3. I have been using Agisoft Metashape/PhotoScan for years

why have I never heard that panorama images produce a better result than flat images in the 3D reconstruction?

Panorama images have been recognized and used as a source of input in 3D reconstruction in Agisoft’s software. Yet, all the development take times, especially with the improvement of the panorama camera. With the continuing development of Civetta for the past 12 years, the Civetta from Weiss AG remained as the highest precision HDR panorama camera on the market — but not all users can afford it. It also means that most panorama cameras available on the market cannot capture photos that are precise enough for processing and reconstruction of 3D point clouds in Agisoft Metashape/PhotoScan. With the accurate HDR panorama, it also means a pressure of processing hardware and longer office time. Still, with the new release of Agisoft Metashape 1.7, you can benefit from much quicker process time, while the quality significantly improves.

4. Does the Civetta only provides panorama images as an input option for 3D reconstruction in Agisoft Metashape/PhotoScan? 

No, you can decide whether you would like to use HDR panorama images or flat images as an input. If you chose to use panorama as an input, you could also decide whether to use a JPG or EXR file. These can be set with Civetta Utility. 

The advantages of working with pre-processed full spherical images are faster processing and better registration between the individual scan positions. It works well in a small project. Working with unprocessed photos directly from the Civetta provides a higher reconstruction density as it’s directly retrieved from raw images. 

The 32 bits EXR full spherical images should only be used when a 32-bit point cloud or 3D model is required. This is mainly for applications in the CGI/Film industry.

5. How can Civetta reduce errors in Agisoft Metashape/PhotoScan processing?

Here are a few things that stitched panorama images cannot but the Civetta: 

1. Reduce human error – Civetta has only one button, which means it can automatically generate an HDR panorama with only one click. It means the Civetta requires less training time and therefore, less human error —- such as not enough overlapping space between images. 
2. Less processing time – A measurement pair is two panorama images captured from a different height but on the same spot. For a measurement pair, Agisoft Metashape/PhotoScan only need to calculate the vector value of one image; then it automatically knows the other one. 
3. Greater coverage with same lighting – Civetta has a vertical field of view as of 180° and horizontal field of view as 360°. As photos for the panorama images are automatically taken within 40 seconds, it minimizes the errors caused by lighting, moving objects and more. 
4. A better result – If you still believe panorama images as an input is not your thing, you can always put all the HDR photos you have taken from the Civetta to the Agisoft Metashape PhotoScan. Civetta and Civetta Utility can automatically adjust the lighting to make sure each photo pixel has an “average” lighting value. It enables better recognition’s and matching in-between images. Our 3D point cloud results are stunning.
5. Measurable point clouds with great accuracy – Technically, the accuracy of a point cloud depends on many factors. On average, Civetta produces +-3mm accuracy with 3D reconstruction.  

6. If I am looking for high-quality panorama, what is the difference between using a panorama captured by Civetta and using a panorama stitched by Agisoft?

Panorama images are not well-known as an input source but as an export source in Agisoft Metashape/PhotoScan. Only high precision panorama cameras can produce good point clouds, and they don’t come cheap. Agisoft Metashape/PhotoScan can stitch several images and create a panorama image.

So here is the question: If I can produce a panorama image through Agisoft, why do I still need a Civetta?  

Civetta is not just a panorama camera but can automatically capture HDR images with 230 megapixels. With such high precision and wide dynamic range, it enables its user to adjust these images, especially using these precise, rich images as the raw input for entertainment, such as rendering and CGI. 

Many companies including Apple, Shell, BP, Marvel and others are currently using Civetta to produce high-quality panorama images for their purposes. It is also proven that the Civetta can provide a lot more information in one single image, compared with a panorama that is stitched by Agisoft Metashape/PhotoScan or Photoshop. 

When capturing 360°images on the location, Civetta produces data for 3D reconstruction and panorama images in 8 bit, 32 bit or as a measurement pair for photogrammetry applications.

Besides, its automatical image capture feature can reduce human error and processing time while improving results. 

7. Why do panorama images from Civetta require less calculation time?

Because many of them are taken in the same position(with a tripod), it ensures enough overlapping area between images. Working with well-calibrated 360° image matching is much easier due to the larger overlap area, producing less wrong matches.

Due to the high dynamic range (28 f-stops) and an optimized image processing workflow, best 3D reconstruction results are guaranteed.

8. Why is Civetta still the best panorama option when I can use a random camera to capture panoramas?

This question has been answered above, but in short:

1. 230 megapixels resolution, the most precise panorama solution you can find on the market for photogrammetry. 
2. Comprehensive coverage (360*180degrees)
3. Quick and easy to use (1 button & automatic capturing within 40 seconds)
4. Less calculation time
5. Less human errors/will not miss out 
6. Suitable for all conditions – can be carry for air travel, waterproof

9. Do I need to purchase Agisoft Metashape/PhotoScan for panorama images if I purchased a Civetta already?

No, the Civetta Utility will come along with your purchase of Civetta. With the software, you can produce 230 megapixels HDR panorama images with several options available. It can be either JPG or EXR, 8 bits or 24 bits, depending on your needs. With precise and information-rich panorama images as input, your 3D reconstruction result on Agisoft will be high quality as well. 

10. What is the general workflow of using panoramas to produce 3D models in Agisoft?

1. Import images. You can choose to import a full set of spherical images, or ideally, measurement paired captured by the Civetta. It can be equirectangular (1:2 dimensions) full spherical images in JPG or EXR format based on your needs, but EXR format usually has a very high hardware requirement.
2. Camera calibration. Choose all the images and select “Spherical”. 
3. Masking. You should mask out the bottom area to reduce calculation time or error in Agisoft Metashape/Photoscan. Do not store your masked file as PNG but JPG.
4. Align photos. The aligning photo process enabled the machine to calculate the full spherical images’ positions and connected one with another in the space. 
5. Result. If there are outlying points in the point cloud (obviously wrong matches), you can mark them with the masking tools and delete them. Alternatively, you can use a gradual selection tool. With the slider, you can set the threshold for outliers. There should not be too heavy outliers, but still enough projection points left. The error (pix) should be in the 0.1+ area with more than 1000 projections.  

If you would like to add measurable value to your 3D model, you can mark a pair of images in the camera list and create a scale bar, by typing 0.6m in the distance field. Then you can run the optimize camera button, and you will get the calculated errors in between. This only works if you did a measurement pair in Civetta.

Measurement pair means you took two panorama images with Civetta in the same location, without moving the tripod. 

Civetta can also be used in combination with a laser scanner, a regular camera, drone and more; you just need to identify them in Agisoft Metashape/Photoscan before you process them. 

Download: Agisoft Metashape/

HDRi stands for High Dynamic Range imaging; it is a technique used to reproduce a greater range of luminosity than standard digital images. In other words, when we said the Civetta is an HDRi camera, it means the photos captured by it captures panoramic photograph that covers the entire field of vision and contains a large amount of data(32 bits per pixels per channel); that can be used to emit light into CG scene. 

Unlike that, most of the photos you have access to, in reality, are called “Low Dynamic Range” as they only store 8 bits of data for each of the red, green and blue channels for every pixel. Surprised or not, for those who have a mobile phone with an HDR function in their camera, they are still capturing LDR images. In this article, I applied some excellent images/gifs from Greg Zaal’s blog, as I found they make the entire concept much easier to understand. 

What can HDRi do? 

Here are the industries that might commonly use HDR for design and content creation: 

• Architecture/Design
• Advertisement
• Heritage reconstruction
• Gaming
• Filming
• Other entertainment sectors

In general, high-quality HDR panorama images are valuable assets, so we are not too surprised that we have many partners using Civetta for years to capture different scenes and make money from selling them to big companies. CG artists can use a good HDRi(I will explain what I mean by “good” further below) to light their scenes, making their design look like a real scene from human eyes. As mentioned above, HDR panorama images can be 16-bits or 32-bits, which means there are 360° equirectangular panoramic high dynamic range image32 bits of memory for each pixel processed. It means Civetta does capture the “background”/scene and all different kinds of lighting sources from the scene. 

In daily life, we can see how different lighting sources change an object’s appearance, yet it is not so easy to simulate by a human. The entire simulation process will be much simpler and faster if you imply HDR on the object you created. 

HDR panorama can also be used as a source for 3D reconstruction in Agisoft Metashape. The Civetta can capture all scenes in over-or underexposure environment, and these images can still be recognized, even if they have different exposures. Civetta can be used in underground, desert, snow mountains or other extreme locations with a diverse range of light exposure. Simultaneously, many photogrammetry scanner/camera cannot provide such a high-quality input for Agisoft. 

In short, almost all the advertisements and films nowadays has to use HDR images for rendering, which also provide better flexibility and freedom to delivery more powerful messages in a designed environment. 

The workflow of creating 230 megapixels HDR panorama image

Here are several steps to consider for producing high-quality HDR panorama images with Civetta: 

1. Set up the camera with the tripod.
2. Please turn on the camera, connect it with the remote control via Bluetooth. 
3. Civetta will automatically turn 360 degrees and capture raw photos takes 40 seconds for around. 
4. Export photos from the Civetta with a USB 3.0, open the Civetta Utility software on your laptop. 
5. You can choose to export 8-bits JPG, 16-bits JPG or 32-bits EXR from your Civetta. 
6. Civetta Utility takes less than a minute to process HDR panorama images.

The size of each panorama image can vary, it might be 90MB-200MB each, depends on the scene you captured and the file type you choose. You are recommended to use a 4+GB RAM to process your photos. 

What makes a good HDRi? 

When we said an HDR panorama image is good or expensive, here is what we meant: 

1. High dynamic range with ~32 bits of colour for each pixel, and complex and rich light sources. You might be able to see different light sources that enable you to use it in your project for simulation—- like natural light, LED light, reflections and more.
2. The sharp and high resolution comes at the same time. An image can have a very high resolution, but it is not sharp enough for media production or 3D reconstruction. Sharp images can help us better identify the shadow area and provide you with a greater ability to produce your work. 

1. High image quality results from a good capturing method, fair camera, and good processing hardware/software. Some complained that using panorama images as an input for Agisoft might lead to errors(error in identifying the image position), it is generally because there are already errors in the panorama images. It is essential to consider some influential factors that might affect the quality of your HDR panorama images, including shaking caused by passengers, cars, and the camera’s wrong setting. 
2. Ensure you set a clear vertical line for your panorama images, especially if you are capturing buildings or landscapes. It might not be undeniable when you first capture it, especially with an automatic panorama camera. Still, if the image is not in horizontal, you might miss out some information and part of the images cannot be used. 
3. There are also other things you can consider, including light colour, shadow sharpness and reflection strengths. 

Why is HDRi expensive?

With the development of technologies, more and more people can access platforms, hardware, software, and essential training, which all let them have the ability to use HDR panorama images for post-production or design. The HDR industry is somehow quite extreme. One HDR image can cost a big company several thousand before it gains the copyright to use it for advertisement. Yet, we didn’t see anyone succeed from selling HDR images as an online business. 

The implication of HDR source is still limited, might mostly be limited to car advertisement. It also means it is difficult for some to explore available clients to keep up with their businesses. Capturing high-quality HDR panorama will either need the right equipment(like Civetta without training) or need excellent knowledge about the theory behind HDR. 

The cost of capturing, processing, storing, and sharing HDR images remains very costly, given the market’s available technology. Here is the quote from Greg Zaal’s blog:

“The problem is, the 16k HDRIs are about 500MB each, and if people downloaded those 6861 times every six months, that’d be almost seven terabytes of data going through the server every year.
That kind of data would easily cost me $600 per year (based on Amazon S3 hosting), and that’s assuming I never publish another HDR ever again.
As it stands right now, I’ve spent $800 on my camera, $400 on the wide-angle lens I use specifically to shoot the HDRIs, $200 on a panoramic head, and $400 on enough RAM to be able to process the images in a reasonable amount of time.
That’s $1800 I’ve already spent on equipment alone just for these HDRIs I give out for free.”

For this article, I would like to thanks Greg Zaal for creating the HDR Haven, and I was touched by his contribution a long time ago. 

After all, feel free to check out the following video to see how Civetta works:

Author: Christiane Zhao

Contact Weiss AG to customize your digitalization solution.