Project Photofly 2.1 Now Available

Project Photofly is our technology preview for using the Autodesk Cloud to convert ordinary digital photographs to 3D models. Version 2.0 was a big success:

• "If anything, it’s notable how mundane the objects are, an indication of how easy this modeling process — once mainly the purview of laser scanners — has become."
  New York Times

• "Ever wished you could take an object in a museum home with you instead of settling for some photos?"
  MIT Technology Review

• "...well-taken photos will be spatially accurate to within 1 percent or less."
  ABC News

• "Let's face it, sitting next to your friends as they scroll through the same 40 images of their trip to Mt. Rushmore is a total snooze-fest. Feigning interest... is so boring it's enough to turn you to stone. Might you politely suggest Photofly to your shutterbug friends."
  Discovery News

• "This could be the most important design advancement in years."
  Gizmodo

• "You gotta see this to believe it."
  Fast Company

• "Leave it to Autodesk Labs to come out with the coolest stuff."
  Design News

• "You don't need a fancy camera - a point-and-shoot is more than good enough - and by leveraging Autodesk's cloud computing cluster, you don't even need a powerful computer to use Photofly."
  Extreme Tech

Thanks to everyone who tried it and provided feedback. We're especially thankful for all those videos we have in the gallery.

We are collecting YouTube video links for a Project Photofly Gallery. If you are working with the technology preview and wish to contribute to the gallery, please contact us at labs.photofly@autodesk.com.

So with this in mind, we're happy to announce version 2.1. The new features include:

• FBX export (mesh, cameras, user geometry) to get the mesh into AutoCAD
• Corrections in proxy management
• Proper handling of names containing non-ascii characters
• More accurate user feedback on failure cases
• Optimization of the data downloaded by the workers from Amazon S3
• Better use of EXIF data from photographs
• Improved manual stitching workflow
• Multiple-selection of image thumbnails
• IPM exported files (Inventor Publisher format) now support both iPhone and Android
• One installer with the End User License Agreement available in multiple languages

So keep the feedback (email, forum, blog comments) coming. To get started for yourself:

Project Photofly v2.1 on Autodesk Labs

Project Photofly progress is alive in the lab.