Project Photofly Contest 2: We Have A Winner

Project Photofly is our web service that converts collections of photographs into 3D models. The Photo Scene Editor is a small Windows application that you install on your computer to upload images and work with the photo scene that is returned by the service. You can export your photo scene to DWG or FBX using the Photo Scene Editor.

Download Photo Scene Editor from Autodesk Labs

From October 11 to November 5, we held a second Project Photofly contest. The idea was that Autodesk Labs community members would take pictures of automobiles, boats, buildings, bridges, etc., submit them to Project Photofly, and use the Photo Scene Editor to view their models in 3D and take measurements. Thanks to all who entered. The judges have conferred and the winner is (drum roll please):

WILL MASSIE
Southern Oregon Marine
Sause Brothers Ocean Towing

Congratulations Will! Based on the contest criteria:

• Aesthetics of the entry
  
  Will is an engineer for a shipyard in southern Oregon that is the sole service and repair yard for a larger towing company called Sause Brothers Ocean Towing. The subject of the photo scene is the ship assist tractor tug Kamaehu. This twin screw Z-drive tug recently arrived in his yard from Hawaii where it had been doing ship-assist work for our company. The vessel was put in dry dock for repairs before being transferred to Long Beach, California.

• Story associated with the use of Project Photofly
  This small project was ideal for testing out Project Photofly. It became necessary for Will to perform hydrostatic calculations on this vessel to evaluate its usefulness for towing service in addition to its regular ship assist work. To do these calculations, it was necessary to have a 3D model of the hull shape; however, this vessel was rebuilt in 1993 before being acquired by the company. All drawings that the company had in its possession were pre-1993 and were therefore of limited usefulness in defining the hull shape. Therefore, Will decided to try photogrammetry via Project Photofly to obtain a 3D point cloud of the hull shape.

  Will shot the photos of the hull as the vessel sat in dry dock. The hull was to be cleaned of sea growth with a high-pressure washing system before being repainted. He took the photos immediately after the hull was cleaned. This was the perfect time to take the photos since the high pressure water jet left behind many recognizable surface features on the hull. If the photos had been taken after painting, the hull surface would have been too uniform for many recognizable features to be recognized by the software. Unfortunately, due to space limitations within the dry dock, it proved impossible to get photos at equal distances around the vessel. Thus, there were many photos showing the entire bow and stern from different angles, but the photos at midships were taken closer to the hull than he would have liked. Due to this, Project Photofly had difficulty automatically stitching the photos around the entire circumference of the hull. This required extensive manual stitching and resubmission to the Project Photofly servers to obtain a complete point cloud of the hull.
  
  

  After adding reference points, setting the origin and axes, and setting a reference distance, Will was able to export the point cloud to AutoCAD. He was then able to use the point cloud in conjunction with older data to obtain a satisfactory 3D hull model for performing the hydrostatic calculations.

• Evidence of ability to use the full feature set of the Photo Scene Editor
  The RZI file included 100 of 100 (100%) photos, 31368 computed 3D points, 10 manual 3D points, 2 added lines, and 1 measurement.

Will's "Autodesk // LABS" engraved WiFi 64GB iPad and Carl Bass signed copy of 3D Studio Max Design are in the mail.

The runners up in the competition included:

• 2nd: Laurin Goad, Barboursville House
• 3rd: Kyle Nishioka, Mamlahoa Highway
• 4th: Nick Van Laar, Vintage Kay Mandolin

Thanks to all who entered.

Celebration is once again alive in the lab.