In a few days (July 30), Chinajoy2017 will kick off at the Shanghai Pudong New International Expo Center. If you are ready to attend this big show, one of the previous lessons is what you must do: Study booth distribution.
Generally speaking, the organizer of the exhibition will introduce the booth distribution of specific exhibitors through text + pictures and videos to help everyone filter out booths that are not of interest and achieve more efficient visits within a limited time. In addition to the two approaches mentioned above, there is a more popular approach in the past two years - a panoramic stereo picture.
A few days ago, he was invited to participate in a small-media press conference & latest product evaluation held by Beijing Xiaoye Auto3D in Beijing. What this "small and beautiful" company does is precisely the 3D panoramic scan (perhaps it should be a fully automatic panoramic scan).
3D modeling and VR panoramas
Before introducing Auto3D, learn about 3D modeling and VR panoramas.
The term 3D modeling does not actually mean “partial.†In addition to the design industry practitioners, most of the engineering students should have had contact with “mechanical drawing or engineering drawing†courses during their college days. The contents involved include: 3D modeling.
In simple terms, 3D modeling uses 3D authoring software (such as 3ds MAX) to construct a model with 3D data in a virtual 3D space and then presents it in a solid form on a flat computer screen.
It has to be admitted that, even now, 3D modeling is still a solution that is used more often by the design industry. However, the traditional 3D modeling has always been a time-consuming and costly problem, and it has not been solved in practice.
Taking the space of 500 square meters as an example, the on-site survey usually takes 3 hours, and then the modeler makes and performs the simulation restoration. It takes 3 to 5 days. The overall process goes down, the time cost and labor costs are high.
In the past 2016, VR is a well-deserved hot word. In 2017, as the VR concept gradually faded, it went to the back-end content manufacturing stage. VR panorama technology is also being recognized by more industries and it has begun to enter practical commercial applications.
VR panorama technology is to take multiple shots taken from various angles, such as horizontal and vertical, and splicing them into 720-degree panoramic images using related software so that the reader can make adjustments according to the angle they need to observe.
The production of VR panoramic photos can be roughly divided into three steps: picture shooting, stitching, and post-processing. Specifically, the easiest way to capture images is to use an all-in-one panoramic camera. However, at present, its imaging results are not ideal, and there are obvious deficiencies in the definition and color performance of the screen. Therefore, many people choose to use high-resolution SLR cameras to complete.
However, using SLR cameras to shoot, the operation is more difficult than the panoramic camera. Due to the limitations of the camera itself, it is difficult to collect the entire space at a time, which means that you need to obtain multiple photos from different angles to cover all the screens.
Of course, with the improvement of the functions of many picture mosaic softwares, the processing of this part is relatively easy. In summary, the VR panoramic photos are very good in displaying effects, but the efficiency of the production phase, especially the shooting, is not very high. This has become a constraint to further expand the commercial market.
What Auto3D is doing and what it wants to do in the future
What can Auto3D do? In a results-oriented sense, the tasks it can accomplish are essentially similar to 3D modeling and VR panoramas. To be more precise, it can be seen as an optimization and upgrade based on the above two.
Summarizing the official information at the conference, the upgrade optimization we mentioned here generally includes two aspects: the improvement of the functional experience (for example, you can freely move in the panoramic space constructed from panoramic images, customize picture scene details, etc.) And the control of efficiency and cost.
In fact, the process of Auto3D generating a panoramic stereo picture is the same as the VR panoramic picture mentioned above. That is: picture shooting, stitching, post-processing. What they do is to optimize these three links separately.
In the introduction of VR panoramic photos, we also mentioned that in the photographing part, for the moment, there is not a satisfactory solution. In order to be able to complete photo shooting more quickly, Auto3D has specialized in an "automated 3D scanning" device.
Its general work flow is to use the “Sony Micro Single†which is installed on the device to perform picture shooting through the autonomous rotation of the camera body, and then the “black box†connected to it below can release the wireless hotspot to data Transfer to the terminal device (iPad) with pre-installed control software.
In summary, the advantage of Auto3D's automated 3D scanning device is that you can use the pre-installed control software on the iPad to implement a one-button operation. After the click starts, it can autonomously complete the entire space. Compared with manual shooting methods, convenience and shooting stability are better.
However, during the presentation of the conference on the day of the conference, we also found some deficiencies in its current existence. The first is the selection of camera equipment with certain limitations, currently equipped with a Sony micro-single, while the black box software driver and optimization is also done for Sony micro-single.
According to the official statement, after testing many different SLR devices, they found that the overall effect of Sony's micro-single form is best from the perspective of imaging effect and cost. However, such an approach is not rigorous, and it may be able to deal with it in most cases.
However, in the case of severe requirements on imaging quality, it is obviously necessary to make choices based on actual conditions. In addition, from the perspective of long-term development, if the shipments of equipment are large, individual customization for different users is not an easy task. Personal advice, in the later period in the optimization of equipment updates, you can consider adding support for camera types to meet the needs of differentiation.
Another point is the detection distance. At present, its ranging task is achieved through the infrared mode. According to the official data, the effective test distance is 10 meters, and the higher accuracy test distance needs to be controlled within 6 meters. This also means that if faced with a large test scenario, efficiency will still be limited even if multiple devices are used in conjunction.
In the process of splicing and post-processing, using background algorithms, Auto3D is much more efficient than traditional 3D modeling and VR panoramas. For the sake of trade secrets, no explanation was given on the day of the conference on the algorithm. However, from the actual results, it is indeed worthy of recognition.
Regarding the future development prospects of Auto3D, Shi Wenbo, the founder of Auto3D, also said that he actually wants to do back-end value-added services, which is also their future profit model. As for the hardware part, the reason why they chose to do “automated 3D scanning†equipment themselves now is because the equipment on the market is not able to meet their requirements.
In addition, at this stage, their target users are still mainly companies. However, as the market deepens, the future will be too much to To C from To B. Of course, where the specific time node is, it still depends on the demands in the market.
to sum up
Thanks to optimization and improvement for all aspects, Auto3D is more efficient in achieving stereoscopic scenes than conventional 3D modeling and VR panoramas, and cost control is also more desirable.
However, for such a young team, there are obviously many things that need to be done. On the basis of the current situation, it will be better to include hardware devices and algorithms, and there is still a long way to go.
Now what Auto3D is doing may soon follow other companies. For them, the advantage is that they have already accumulated a large amount of technology, which also makes it lead half or even one position.
Of course, from the perspective of industry development, we are more willing to see more and more “players†entering the game to push the industry forward.
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