Artist Greg Downing used ImageModeler 3.5 and Stitcher to recreate a 3D model of the Tribunal Plaza in Nice, France that a viewer can "walk" around in. © Greg Downing

In addition to the above-mentioned software, an artist by the name of Greg Downing has developed a technique by creating image-based 3D models from panoramic images. Utilizing REALVIZ ImageModeler 3.5 and Stitcher (a panoramic creation software) to “stitch” a series of panoramic images from inside the Tribunal Plaza in Nice, France, Downing re-created a very accurate 3D model of the Plaza. This was then taken a step further to be used to "walk" around in, as if in a game.

There maybe more software not listed here capable of producing similar results, but essentially they all use a similar process to achieve the final results. So as you can see, these applications do have the ability to cut down significantly on the time it takes in production to create models, unwrap and texture them, but is it all as good as it sounds?

So What are the Pros and Cons?
While it may appear to some of you that these techniques and applications are just what you’re looking for to add to your production pipeline, before you make your purchase let’s dig a little deeper than the surface. While this technology can work with basically any photograph you can throw at it, not all of the aforementioned products do exactly what you may you expect them to do. As an example, the software PhotoModeler may work divinely for your architectural projects, but it’s not as efficient for modeling organic objects such as people. The reason for this is because PhotoModeler and a majority of the other applications mentioned require users to manually assign reference points for areas that only can be seen from your images. Each of these reference points essentially forms a vertex in the final model, thus creating the object, but because of the complexity of organic subjects that require quite a few more vertices or faces, etc., the amount of reference points you would have to place manually to create a quality model would be astronomical, let alone very tedious and time consuming work. Also, it can be quite difficult to accurately place precise reference points on photographs that lack sharp edges to use as reference.