Edit 3D to get rid of junk on edges

After it is finished being processed there is still junk on the edges of the map because of the 45 degree orbital images where there were none straight down. How can I clean this up to make it nice? Any simples tools to run on windows? I wish this were easy on your website? I know how to crop 2D. Your system is new to me I was an ESRI Arcinfo pioneer from 1990.

Thanks in advance,
Steve

Hello @Steve_Bright,

Thank you for reaching out. Unfortunately, as of right now, cropping is only possible when doing so on a 2D ortho. You are not able to crop 3D models natively on the DroneDeploy application. I would recommend using a third party application such as Meshlab to edit your 3D models.

Thanks!

I’ve tried to load your OBJ file into Meshlab. It crashes and closes at 99%. Other sample files seem to work. Please help.

I have had no failures loading the OBJ file into Rhino 6 (but Rhino 6 costs $995 without discounts or $395 to upgrade Rhino). I am then able to trim the 3D model to the dimensions I like. Plus Rhino lets you add contour lines to the 3D model with a 1 line command:

contours = [doc.Objects.AddCurve(contourGeo) for contourGeo in Mesh.CreateContourCurves(meshGeo, contourStart, contourEnd, step)]

or you can make 3D slope maps, or 3D elevation maps. But it does take some learning to use Rhino. I get good help from others on the Rhino Forum which has over 17,000 users vs 4,727 on DroneDeploy.

Regards,
Terry.

Cannot get Rhino to run at all. Working with support. I think Meshlab may be simpler, but there’s just too many points in my OBJ file. Can I redo Dronedeploy with a small subset of images in one corner of my project? Is there any other way to reduce the size of the OBJ?

@Steve_Bright,

I just tried loading my latest point cloud of 439 MB into Rhino. It took about 10 minutes to convert the .las file to x,y,z points and generate the point cloud. But it is very big and pretty slow to navigate in Rhino.

How big is your .OBJ file?

Regards,
Terry.

Is there a way to simplify a large OBJ? Smooth it with less points? If so I’ll send you mine to experiment with? Then I’d have something to work with in return with less points…

Hi @Steve_Bright,

As another workaround, if you want to crop/reduce the general extension of your map, I suggest you re-upload the images to create a new map and edit the geometry of your map before processing the data. That should give you a similar result than using our Cropping tool, but that way, it would be applied to the 3D model and exports. To do so, please use the “upload images” button that is located in the blue + sign at the bottom of your side panel.

Also, if you get Meshlab to work, I would recommend you to check this MeshLab - Decimate a model article that shows you how to reduce the general size of your OBJ file.

I hope you find this information helpful.

Cheers,
Andrea

Great advice! But the orbital images cause the 3D area to expand beyond the boundaries. I’d have to exclude some of those too? Nice article, perhaps MeshLab will work with less points on my machine.

Hi @Steve_Bright,

Sure, you could exclude some of those oblique images if you consider that they could be causing this problem. Remeber that you only need a few oblique images to cover your area of interest. Too many obliques can cause issues on your model afterward. Also, ensure that the oblique images that you are including in the processing do not contain the horizon/sky on them.

Give it a try :slight_smile:

Best,
Andrea

I always crop the 3D mesh model created by the OBJ file which makes it 30-40% smaller, perhaps more in your case. And then I work directly with this reduced 3D mesh model without textures to create 3D contour, slope and elevation maps. I cannot reliably get the textures to import into Rhino. But this only affects the visual appearance. If I want to look at a better 3D model with texture, I just double-click on the OBJ file in Windows 10 and 3D Builder, which comes with Windows 10, loads it up in less than a minute (250 MB of total data) and displays it with better quality and faster navigation than in DroneDeploy.

I could try cropping your 3D model if you like but then you will only have the model and not the texture maps that go on it. I align my model to a 1070’ x 700’ xy border and then adjust the Z to make it correct relative to sea-level.

Regards,
Terry.

I figured out how to crop and decimate in Meshlab! But it will not load with textures. Crashes. I will try to build a small OBJ without obliques.

Looking forward to contour and slope maps when I get Rhino to run.

I figured out how to crop and decimate in Meshlab. Before I bothered I tried a simple experiment. I exported a 3D .OBJ from Dronedeploy. Then uploaded all those files to Sketchfab unmodified. Here is the results. There are white pieces missing. And it crashes on multiple machines and browsers.

Please help?

WIP stands for Work In Progress. Rhino 6 was in its WIP phase for several years. I used it this last year. Now it has progressed to Beta which I am now using. Rhino 6 supports 4K displays whereas Rhino 5 did not. The error you are getting is associated with the license setup. If you contact Rhino support they will help you fix this.

Regards,
Terry.

What were the front and side overlaps for the mission? Perhaps more pictures will fix the holes in your 3D model. I used to fly with 80/80 overlaps but I am getting a bit better results with 90/84 overlaps.

Regards,
Terry.

Thanks for your advice Terry, but I don’t think that’s it. It looks perfect in Dronedeploy. It’s only when I export and upload to Sketchfab (unchanged) that I see these problems. My goal is to crop the edges in Meshlab. When I do that the unchanged problems get worse. It crashes when viewing in Sketchlab on multiple browsers and platforms. Any ideas how to edit the 3D render to get rid of all the junk? I’ve tried cropping the original ortho images to remove the horizon before uploading. That helps a little.

No idea here. I can only process the 3D model without textures so far.

Regards,
Terry.