Using depth maps for krpano tours to create a 3D tour from 360 photos

Hi guys,

It was posted here some time ago but it did not catch any attention. Probably because it was not explained what it was.

In fact it is so cool that just with 360 photos and some work you can create a tour where you are no longer limited to views from a point

For a start just have look at the following tour.

https://krpano.com/releases/1.20.9/viewer/krpano.html?xml=examples/depthmap/abu-simbel-tempel-tour/tour.xml

If it shows an error it is most likely because you are using quite high display resolution. Just reduce it and try to load the tour again.

After it loads you can move Up and down using the arrows at the bottom right corner and you can move sideways using the left and the right arrows on your keyboard.

This is all possible because there is a room geometry created so it is kind of having faces of every plane(a floor, walls, a celling).

Now there will be a sad part:

It could be as easy as using https://everpano.com/ app to create all this geometry. However the app seems to be abandoned since the last year. it does make it easy to start creating but it is hard to remove mistakes if you screw it up. And shapes for 3D there are very basic.

They offer a trial but please check their documentation section for video tutorials. They are clear to understand and follow.

Now it is good part.

All this can be done in Blender with PanoCamAdder add-on. Add-on is like 5 euros and Blender is free.

The bad parts are you need a krpano license to make the final tour & the guy who is making videos how to do it in Blender have them without any voice over and is not trying to explain every step he is doing. So if you are not expert in Blender a learning curve can be quite time consuming.

Here is one of his videos

BTW Metareal seems to be using the same tech as they draw geometry for a space. That's how they get a dollhouse view so nice and clean. And if you take time to draw most of furniture the furniture with a draw geometry will be in 3D representation in a dollhouse and transitions rather than being flat laying on a floor and walls.

I cannot say it is a matterport Killer as with drawing all furniture it will be time consuming but it lets you to mimic a true 3D tour with any movements inside a tour as long as they are straight lines movement. And probably with a bit of programing you can move to almost any field of view needed. Not to mention that Blender is 3D software and you may be able to add cool stuff to your 3D tour.

WGAN Fan Club Member 4.34K Website Queensland, Australia Matterport Service Partner Google Street View Trusted Photographer We Get Around Network Member	4.34K Wingman private msg quote post Address this user	plus 1 plus 1 plus 1 0
	At this point I cannot even download his free add on for Blender. Despite of it being declared as free he asks for at least 1 euro to access a download link for it. It is not a big deal to pay but I kind of do not like an idea of using so called free tool while it is not free. So I'd love to try it and even started learning Blender but what scares me most it is not that I have to pay 1 euro for free or 5 euros for full non-free version of the Blender add-on. I'd be happy to pay even 3 times more of what he asks.. the problem is a cost of a krpano license. It seems quite basic comparing to Pano2VR and 3D Vista. It may be as powerfull as both but you will need to get into coding. Coding does not scare me but time required to build a decent tour that way can be quite a lot. Now I am trying on a krpano forum to ask him to remove a paywall from free version of the add-on. If I can get it for free and try following steps in its mute tutorials. If I find it easy and fast to do I can start thinking if it's worth doing and paying for the krpano license. As for learning Blender I am using this guy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AP5CTAKckBI He is very good at explaining things but sometimes you need to have a google open to find some shortcuts for actions in Blender. He has another video tutorial with all them explained but unless you use them in doing something practical like the chair example you won't learn them by just watching videos. For example he moves field of view in his video with the chair and when you try to move after him it does not work. it is simply because he does it with shortcuts and you just trying to click on the scene to move it. So you need to find a shortcut to do it. He shows what he presses as a screen recording function but it flashes, you cannot see it clearly and that when you can jump on google search and look what shortcut combination does it. So doing it that way, including rewinding back to watch some parts again, again and again to understand it I could draw a side of the chair in about 4 hours. Now if I have to do it again.. I can probably do it in 30 minutes and faster. So you can gain that knowledge how things done in Blender very fast, the most problematic is not to loose it but not doing anything again in blender for weeks or months. I did go ahead of his workflow with his second part tutorial for the chair. He showed some function how to make a round surface using subsurface modifiers for the side. Once I saw it I realised a potential how to fix other parts of the side. I went well ahead of him and built almost the whole side applying this method. I got a fantastic 3D representation of the side(see attached image). But later though I figured out that it more likely must be done differently because in this video(https://youtu.be/px0sJElIUGc?t=404) at this exact point he can select some plane that represent a bevel and I cannot. I have been going to ask him if it is critical for further steps as it may be important for rendering selected faces only but I have not done it yet. If it is important I may need to start from scratch again to achieve exactly what he can do. If it is not I can jump to adding more parts to the side, then copy it for another side of a chair and move to other parts. Some may thinks why 3D while we just do 360 photos but first it is necessary in order to use the add-on for building a depthmap tour as it works with Blender only. And second, look at the @MeshImages example what you can do with the data collected in 3D through photogrammetry. It is just stunning what free Blender can do. Even with just a Matterpack without any need to use photogrammetry you can start turning a so called 3d tours in real 3D(they have 3d data but let's just be honest they are not 3D tours), add animation and turn them into something even live while all visual data shown is from a real space. For me who is not doing much a tours now learning Blender seems to be a way to offer fantastic services related to 3D. Do not think it is hard.. it is but if you wish to learn I believe you can & will succeed.
	4 years ago	Post 9 • IP flag post

2.96K	2.96K MeshImages private msg quote post Address this user	plus 1 plus 1 plus 1 9
	@Wingman Good post! The 360s plus depthmaps will be the near future, I totaly agree. "Unlimited" Pano resolution, awesome transitions and brilliant 3D dollhouses. Everything for 5 Euros flatfee and selfhosted. The guy with the 5-Euro-Blender-Plugin is from Germany, he calls himself Der Mische and he has some Tutorials on his website. This one covers everything in detail. Der Mische shared an example of his work recently on his facebook group on 360 and Depthmaps, that was absolutely mindblowing. This is a screenshot of this tour.
	4 years ago	Post 2 • IP flag post

2.96K	2.96K MeshImages private msg quote post Address this user	plus 1 plus 1 plus 1 6
	This will also be part of the future - realtime 3D in photorealistic quality (from photogrammetry) like in Unreal Engine 5 [Gameplay starts at 1:30]
	4 years ago	Post 3 • IP flag post

547	547 Kumar private msg quote post Address this user	plus 1 plus 1 plus 1 3
	@MeshImages you have link to the tour? this one - https://e3effa51eee72fd900e3-2fb779bd12ec72d4612275342f2c9187.ssl.cf1.rackcdn.com/515c34359745d7ac2389435eea813f3e.jpg
	4 years ago	Post 5 • IP flag post

2.96K	2.96K MeshImages private msg quote post Address this user	plus 1 plus 1 plus 1 3
	@Kumar it's not mine, so I will not share it in public. But I have sent you the link in Dan's Email system
	4 years ago	Post 6 • IP flag post

547	547 Kumar private msg quote post Address this user	plus 1 plus 1 plus 1 3
	@MeshImages well noted, hope the German makes it public sometime soon. Thanks
	4 years ago	Post 7 • IP flag post

WGAN Forum Founder & WGAN-TV Podcast Host 31.21K Website Atlanta, Georgia Linked In Facebook Twitter YouTube TikTok Instragram Matterport Service Partner Google Street View Trusted Photographer Zillow Certified Photographer We Get Around Network Member	31.21K DanSmigrod private msg quote post Address this user	plus 1 plus 1 plus 1 0
	@Wingman Wow! That is an amazing, silky smooth tour. Thanks for sharing. @MeshImages Thanks for sharing the links. Best, Dan
	4 years ago	Post 8 • IP flag post

Using depth maps for krpano tours to create a 3D tour from 360 photos14919