Have you ever considered creating an accurate and detailed 3D model from 2D photos? Probably not, it's incredibly difficult. Now, if you try to do it on a truly massive scale and have a huge castle as your subject, it makes it almost impossible to do by hand. The guys at Pix4D took it as a challenge to their software and not only modeled the outside, but also the inside of the castle, all in one interactive 3D model. To prove that it can be done by anyone, they decided to use only consumer cameras (GoPro, DSLR and a Mirrorless).
Chillon Castle ("Chateau de Chillon") is Switzerland’s most visited historic monument and one of the most complex structures in the country, which is why Pix4D chose this location to test out the software (Pix4Dmapper) they developed in the past few years. The software is capable of automatically processing normal 2D photos, and produce a very accurate 3D model. No manual work is needed except for choosing the images the software is going to analyze.
“The goal of this project was to do a fun and instructive project to use the latest features of our software (Pix4Dmapper) and publish a white paper on it. These latest features are the use of the GoPro, Fisheye lenses and combination of both aerial and ground imagery in one project and were introduced with V1.1 of Pix4Dmapper in late April of this year.”
To read more about the project and how it was done, check out Pix4D project page.
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