RealityCapture (later called RC) is a photogrammetry software that creates 3D models from photographs or laser scans. It creates a 3D point cloud by aligning the images together. It can be used for extracting spatial data from point clouds or it can also be used for reconstructing detailed, textured models for visualization. The models created in RC are then exported for post-processing analysis in other 3D software like CloudCompare.

Objectives/Learning Outcomes

1. Understand the principles of RC.
   
2. Learn what kind of images can be imported in RC.
   
3. Learn how to align the images together.
   
4. Learn how to scale and orient the model to real world dimensions.
   
5. Learn how to manually add ground control points (GCPs).
   
6. Learn how to reconstruct the model to create dense 3D point cloud.
   
7. Learn different filtering tools in RC.
   
8. Learn how to texture, simplify and reproject the model.
   
9. Learn about different export file formats.
   

For the purposes of this exercise, you are only required to practice creating a sparse 3D point cloud by the aligning the images that were shot in the Aalto tunnel and then reconstruct the model to make a dense 3D point cloud. Note that the reconstruction step will require you to have NVIDIA GPU on your PC.
You don’t need to export the final output because a separate dataset will be provided for post-processing in CloudCompare. The goal of this exercise is to understand how photogrammetric processing in RealityCapture works.

• Written guide
  
• Full video tutorial
• Video tutorials
• Download Reality Capture - Note: Some steps (reconstruction and texturing) will require Nvidia GPU. If you cannot use the software please follow the video tutorial only. If you are a student or belong to any other business institution or company and have less than 1M USD revenue per year, then you can download the software for free and use all features.
  
• Download the images and Download alignment data
• Processed project can be downloaded here (you can download this folder, unzip it and open with RealityCapture PC software to see how a completed project looks like. Note, that you will have to locate the image files downloaded separately from the link above).