End of Week 2

I've continued setting up some photogrammetry processes to see if I can obtain any successful stitches. I'm comparing Agisoft Photoscan with Autodesk's ReCap. The main difference is Agisoft processes locally on your machine and does not put limits on how much you can feed it (for better or worse). There is a batch process option which includes thoughtful touches like "save after each step" and a final export option, so I'm comfortable throwing photo sets at it to run overnight. I just learned you can leverage the GPU, kicking myself for not checking sooner, but for my next round. ReCap processes on Autodesk's cloud, but has limits on 100 photos per object (and I suspect they get compressed). I don't expect great models yet, but I'm letting them process anyways.

Meanwhile, I am still researching emergent technologies in 3D data capture and in point based rendering.

Point Based Rendering--

I tried the Unity package "PCX" which handles point cloud .stl files, and was able to pull in their example file. Normally Unity does not support .stl so that alone was kind of cool. The test file was a large Azalea bush (sidenote, hosted on Sketchfab). There are two shaders, point and disc. Both looked like, well, point clouds. I kept thinking, if only there was some way to draw some kind of surface to connect all these points. 

I have yet to find someone who specializes in point based rendering so I'll have to do some more serious asking. I am not convinced yet there is an advantage--  none of the workflows that I have researched use this. Yes, it would save a lot of steps optimizing the data into polygons and maps.
But I need to confirm that:
1) points can be rendered and lit beautifully, in realtime
2) and they don't look like points
3) I don't need to build custom tools to achieve this.

Otherwise, I'm sticking to mesh based rendering.

3D Data Capture--

This is where my brain starts melting a little.
I like the way the Wikipedia page for Volumetric Video is structured, although I might call in Volumetric Capture but let's start here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volumetric_video

So under History we have: CG, Lasers, Kinect, Photogram, VR, and Light Field Photography. This last one is the most unfamiliar to me, although a couple times it has been brought up to me. I mentioned this again to Nick and he plopped a Lytro camera on my desk. Lytro is now Raytrix, and I'm not even sure this device is supported. It is a mysterious hunk of magical tech that I don't know what to do with for now. Perhaps, if it is useful, it will make photo scanning easier and more accurate.

I originally stated, last semester, I was uninterested in what I was generalizing as 'performance capture'. Researching in this direction is making me second guess that statement.