Coming soon 3DSOM V5 – easier, faster and more flexible

As we mentioned back in March we’ve been working on adding a marker-less solution to 3DSOM and as we showed in our previous post things are working well with that. However alongside that we’ve also been busy making a number of other changes that we think that you’ll like. In fact we’ve decided that since so much is changing in 3DSOM that we’re going to wrap these changes into a new version – 3DSOM V5. As the title of this post suggests our aim for V5 is that 3DSOM will be easier to use, faster and more flexible than ever before.

While we haven’t got a firm release schedule ironed out yet, as you’ll see below there’s a lot of new features that we need to test internally before we’ll be ready to release, we’re hoping that we’ll have the initial release to those that register early in August with V5 on general release hopefully in September. We’ll update you via this blog with more news as that changes.

We think that the new marker-less feature makes the act of capturing the photo’s easier – no longer will you need to place the object on the mat, or place DOMINO’s in the scene you can now just start snapping away with your camera or phone and capture the pictures from which 3DSOM can create the 3D model.

How much faster?

The short answer is: much.

Read on for some information as to how we’re managing to do this as well as some results from our tests.

We’ve decided to bring 3DSOM into the 21st Century and we’re going to make use of the processing power available from NVIDIA’s excellent graphics cards. Previously we were only using CPU’s when converting your photos’ to 3D models. This has worked well over the years but we thought it was time to utilise the power of the GPU. We’re seeing speed improvements to all aspects of the processing workflow which means that you’ll be able to process your models much quicker than before. Whilst many of you may be thinking – what’s the rush to process our models? – well there are other benefits to this change:

• improved feature detection
• less artefacts

Below is some data showing an example of how much difference GPU processing makes. These tests were based on a 44 image data set captured from a mobile phone and show the time it takes to solve the camera position over that set. These tests were run using an NVIDIA 950 card (entry level card for NVIDIA’s previous chipset) and you would see a more dramatic difference if using a higher level card or a current generation card such as the NVIDIA 1080.

More Flexible

We’re not turning off any of the previous tracking features and the new GPU processing isn’t a requirement we’re leaving it up to you how you use 3DSOM V5. Don’t want to invest in a NVIDIA GPU yet, no worries carry on as you. Have a nice workflow set up to use the Calibration Mat – no worries carry on. We want 3DSOM to fit lots of different use cases whether that’s capturing images using your mobile phone while you’re out-and-about through to professional studio setups.

So for tracking technologies you now have the choice of:

• Calibration Mat
• DOMINO markers
• Markerless

Hopefully this flexibility will help you do more than ever before with 3DSOM V5.

Upgrades

For those of you with valid V4 licenses we’ll work out an upgrade path for you to show our continued gratitude for your support.