Unity Photogrammetry Guide

I have mentioned this talk before: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ny9ZXt_2v2Y
and I have even mentioned the delighting tool that this team published.

But I hadn't put two and two together. Turns out there is an AMAZING photogrammetry guide that was published under this Unity research team. It is over 40 pages of best practices, equipment, and general documentation. https://unity.com/solutions/photogrammetry

And just look at their tech demo 😍 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2Z1oiFDKI0


So what does this all mean for me, as I wrap up this term? First, it is a valuable reference for my paper, and I'd argue that if it is official Unity documentation and presented at SIGGRAPH it probably should be considered peer reviewed (even if not published as a scholarly paper).

Secondly, there are a lot of answers in here that thankfully undercut some of my research leads. For example, there is a whole chapter on best shooting patterns for different subjects (ex, they advise shooting ground to walk in an inward spiral to avoid footsteps in the capture). They talk about drone capture. They go over the entire geo reconstruction for realtime assets pipeline.

One important process is they cover shooting detail shots for tileable / procedural material generation. This is something I hadn't considered a priority in this term, that is, I knew this pipeline existed but I didn't think I would get to it in time.

A lot of success in their tech demo is due to their tileable textures and layered shaders, in particular, for their ground floor.

This leads me to wonder a couple of things:

• I should be adopting more procedural materials instead of direct projection? For things such as my concrete floor, brick walls, etc.
• I should probably approach scene separation differently. "Ground elements" "wall elements" could be tileable/procedural. Right now I am still projecting directly onto the mesh.
• I should be utilizing more of the Unity pipeline, such as their delighting tool? (they mentioned future developments into a standalone app, but so far there is no news on this.)
• I should be investing more time into learning Substance Designer? Designer is praised for it's procedural material system, which is node based (similar to Houdini). 

I love reading about the developments made in the world of photogram for games... it is a vast pool of knowlege and is all very exciting. Of course I need to be prioritizing for the term schedule and deliverables, and the list of directions to research seem to be ever growing.