Adam Hockley: Plymouth Rock in 3D from 23 Pictures

Many of you may recall my Autodesk Labs days when I worked on Project Photofly — our technology related to photogrammetry — the process of creating 3D models from 2D images. You may also recall how there was a consumer version of this technology called 123D Catch, and now there's a professional version called Autodesk ReCap. Back in the Labs day, I had a contest where Autodesk customers could try to create something interesting with photogrammetry. Regional Virtual Design and Construction Manager at Bartlett Cocke General Contractors, Adam Hockley, captured third place in one of those contests. Well, Adam's been at it again. Here's his email message:

Scott! Hey, hope all is well. I wanted to share this with you because you’d appreciate it. As you know we were up in Massachusetts last week. We visited Plymouth Rock, and as I was looking at it, I thought it was the perfect location to do a 3D photogrammetry model. There were not a lot of people around, and I could quickly walk around the monument. I used my wife's new Samsung S10. It has the 3 cameras on the back, and I used the widescreen setting. I took 23 photos with it by walking around the rock. I brought it into ReCap Photo just now and Voila! It turned out very well. I also brought it into Navisworks so I could share it with my co-workers using Navisworks Freedom with preset viewpoints. Plans, sections, views from the ground level which you can’t get access. Anyway, pretty cool! Thought I’d share with you. Always fun to use Autodesk products even on vacation. The detail on the rock is pretty incredible with that S10 camera.

Plymouth Rock marks the spot where the Mayflower Pilgrims landed to found Plymouth Colony in 1620. Plymouth Rock has occupied a prominent place in American tradition as a symbol of both the virtues and the flaws of the first English people who colonized New England. In 1774, the rock broke in half during an attempt to haul it to Town Square in Plymouth, Massachusetts. The top portion sat in Town Square, was moved to Pilgrim Hall Museum in 1834, and was returned to its original site on the shore of Plymouth Harbor in 1880. Today it is ensconced beneath a granite canopy designed by McKim, Mead, & White. ^[wikipedia]

1. Adam visited Plymouth Rock and took some pictures.

   

2. He uploaded those pictures to the ReCap server that processed this into a 3D model.

   

3. Adam can use ReCap to pan and zoom to view the rock from any angle or distance.

   

4. ReCap has the ability to export the 3D model as an FBX (Filmbox interoperability format) file.

   

5. Adam brought the FBX into Autodesk Navisworks. When working with historical, one-of-a-kind rocks, one thing one certainly wants to leverage is collision detection. :-)

   

Thanks, Adam.

Many game developers use the same process to bring real-world things into virtual worlds. If 3D printing is a way to get a model out into the real world, then photogrammetry is a way to get a thing in the real world into the computer as a 3D model.

Autodesk has always been an automation company. Today, more than ever, that means helping our customers automate their design and make processes. We help them embrace the future of making, where they can do more (e.g., efficiency, performance, quality), with less (e.g., energy, raw materials, timeframes, waste of human potential), and realize the opportunity for better (e.g., innovation, user experience, return on investment). Applying photogrammetry to get accurate representations of real-world things into designs, animations, simulations, review processes, and construction processes offers the opportunity for better.

Strolling down memory lane is alive in the lab.