Project Photofly is our web service that converts collections of photographs into 3D models. The Photo Scene Editor is a small Windows application that you install on your computer to upload images and work with the photo scene that is returned by the service. You can export your photo scene to DWG using the Photo Scene Editor.

Download Photo Scene Editor from Autodesk Labs

From August 23 to September 24, we held a Project Photofly contest. The idea was that Autodesk Labs community members would take pictures of buildings, submit them to Project Photofly, and use the Photo Scene Editor to view their models in 3D and take measurements. Thanks to all who entered. The judges have conferred and the winner is (drum roll please):

KYLE KREWSON
Cleveland State University

Congratulations Kyle! Based on the contest criteria:

• Aesthetics of the entry
  
  
  The style of Mather Mansion is Tudor Gothic Revival. Though built in 1910, it is not like the vertical, turreted, gingerbread Victorians of that period. Tudor is a label associated with squarish buildings with clipped gables, long façades, steep roofs, and shallow oriels (window bays). The 45-room house was cost more than one million dollars in 1910 and was the most expensive house ever built in Cleveland at the time.

• Story associated with the use of Project Photofly
  The Mather Mansion, constructed in 1910 along Cleveland’s millionaire row, home of the richest and most influential people in the country during the late 1800’s to early 1900’s, is now one of only a handful of mansions left along Euclid Avenue in downtown Cleveland, Ohio. Mather Mansion, former home to iron-mining millionaire Samuel Mather, is now the oldest structure on Cleveland State University’s (CSU) campus that has grown up around it. A plan has been developed, to make an addition to the mansion and repurpose it as a boutique hotel.

  Mather Mansion, included in the National Register of Historic Places, is a gem for the campus community and the City of Cleveland. Autodesk Labs Photo Scene Editor, has enabled CSU to capture a virtual 3D snapshot of the building as it exists on its site before the renovation. Not only does CSU now have a series of photos stitched together that capture the undisturbed site prior to construction, CSU has a virtual model of the building with the north, west, and south facades of the building intact as they were originally built. The addition for the boutique hotel will likely wrap portions of the north and west facades of the building, and thus burying the history of how the design elements relate to one another. A limitation to photographs alone is the difficulty of scaling the photo in order to obtain accurate measurements. This to-scale 3d model of the Mansion, will allow CSU to measure significant architectural façade elements in the future after they are covered up by the addition should a restoration project occur that needs to draw inspiration from the original building.

  As a result of Autodesk Labs innovations, easily capturing real-world buildings in 3D from photographs for the purposes of archiving historically significant structures is alive in the field.

• Evidence of ability to use the full feature set of the Photo Scene Editor
  The RZI file included 82 of 89 (92%) photos, 33102 computed 3D points, 9 manual 3D points, 9 added lines, and 3 measurements.

Kyle's "Autodesk // LABS" engraved WiFi 64GB iPad and Carl Bass signed copy of 3D Studio Max Design are in the mail. (Wow - that's as close as "The check's in the mail." as I get.)

The runners up in the competition included:

• 2nd: Nick Van Larr, Colony Covenant Church
• 3rd: Adam Hockley, San Antonio Home
• 4th: Ged Trias, Midway Shumway Market

Thanks to all who entered. Although you can only win a prize if you are a legal resident of the United States or Canada, you can still win the glory (as in bragging rights) regardless of where you live. So members of the Autodesk Labs community from all over the world are encouraged to enter.

We will be holding another Project Photofly contest soon. I think we will open the next one up to anything, e.g. buildings, boat hulls, piles of gravel, mechanical parts, etc. So get out those cameras and get started now. "Ladies and gentleman, start your cameras..."

Celebration is alive in the lab.