Google Earth Photogrammetry
This particular exercise was by far the most complicated to achieve. Throughout the creation of these 3D modelled landscapes I had to undergo a large amount of trial and error as well as research on how to achieve the desired result whilst ensuring it remained free of cost and was compatible with earlier Apple software.
My initial vision was to visualise dense point clouds and create a short video piece that was more artistic in nature. This was soon found to be unachievable without the latest version of Blender (2.80), something which the outdated software on my MacBook couldn’t run.
As for the process of actually making the 3D models, I used a combination of 5 different programs including; Google Earth Pro, After Effects, Lightroom, Regard3D and QuickTime (screen recording). I would begin by screen recording a fly around of a certain location in google earth and putting it through AE, changing the composition frame rate to 1 or 2 and exporting it as a Jpeg sequence. This would ultimately become the data set for the model. I then imported these images into LR and using a plugin called LensTagger I proceeded to add focal length metadata to the Jpegs. This is needed for Regard3D to compute matching images. I then ran the data set through Regard3D using the standard procedure for creating models and made the surface mesh using the texture colorisation method which gave far richer details in the models.
Once I had a desirable model, I would import the obj file into Blender and scale / position it appropriately and use the 3D camera to set up a series of keyframes which would enable me to record the models and produce the video later in Premier Pro.
This ended up being a really beneficial exercise which taught me a lot about problem solving. The actual applications of this technique could be used experimentally to create interesting art pieces or could be commercially in something like real estate; modelling various properties etc.
