Viewing IPM files generated by Project Photofly

"Darling, you send me, honest you do, honest you do."
   "You Send Me," Sam Cooke, 1959

Project Photofly is our technology preview of converting photographs to 3D models. You start with a set of photographs that you load into a Photo Scene Editor - a small application you install on your Windows PC. Using the Photo Scene Editor, you upload the photos to the Project Photofly server. The server then converts the photographs to a 3D photo scene by lining up features in the photographs and returns the photo scene to the Photo Scene Editor running on your computer. From the Photo Scene Editor, you can save the photo scene to your computer in a variety of file formats.

Menu Command	Format	Contents
	.3dp	The 3D photo scene contains cameras, reference points, 3D mesh, reference lines, and distance measures. This is the native format for Project Photofly.
	.dwg	The drawing contains reference points and reference lines.
	.fbx	The Autodesk FBX asset exchange file contains the 3D cameras, the photo textured 3D mesh, reference points, reference lines, and reference labels.
	.rzi	The ImageModeler file is a subset of the 3dp file based on what was selected at the time the photo scene was exported.
	.obj	The OBJect file contains the photo textured 3D mesh.
	.ipm	The Inventor Publisher Mobile file contains the photo textured 3D mesh and can be viewed with the free Inventor Publisher Viewer available in the Apple iTunes App Store.
	.las	The binary LASer file contains the 3D point cloud that was automatically extracted from the pixels of the source photographs. The LAS file format version is 1.2.

A frequently asked question is "How do I view the IPM file?" Vice President of Autodesk Labs, Brian Mathews, recently answered this question in a reply to [email protected]:

Once you’ve installed the Inventor Publisher Mobile application, there are three ways to get the IPM file to your device:

1. Email the IPM file, then open the email attachment on the iPhone/iPad. The Inventor Publisher Mobile application will launch automatically.

2. Upload the IPM file to a web service (DROPBOX, YouSendIt, BOX, SugarSync, etc.) and email the link to your iPhone/iPad.

3. Do the same as #2, but instead of sending the link in an Email, just navigate to the link on a web site.

Try it for yourself today.

Project Photofly 2.1

Explaining how to send the IPM is alive in the lab.