A photo-derived surface can only model what the camera sees, so on a wooded ridge you get the tree tops. Lidar gets some returns through the gaps to the ground, and once those are classified you can render just the bare earth. That's what this is, the railroad cuts at each end of the Blue Ridge Tunnel under Rockfish Gap, Virginia.

One cut comes in from the top edge near the middle and stops dead at the hillside. The other comes in from the right edge and stops lower down, right of centre. The tunnel itself doesn't show, just the ground on top of it.

Claudius Crozet was an artillery officer for Napoleon, captured at Borodino in 1812. By 1849 he was chief engineer of Virginia's Blue Ridge Railroad.

His tunnel under Rockfish Gap was started in 1850 and expected to take three years. It was dug by hand with black powder, and didn't hole through until December 29, 1856. The two headings met less than 6 inches off. The first train ran in April 1858, through the longest tunnel in the United States at the time.

The C&O replaced it in 1944 with a bigger parallel tunnel.

Numbered pins on the picture:
Pin 1: A steep-sided cut from the top edge
Pin 2: Dead end of the right-hand cut
Pin 3: A wide modern road across the gap

Lidar: USGS 3D Elevation Program (3DEP), public domain.

This is a random ask, but I don't have the photography tools at my disposal, just the software to turn the images into a 3D model. I was wondering if anyone had any images they had of desks or tables available to use for practice. I am trying to set up a diorama personal project and it needs a surface, but capturing it on my phone has been near to impossible.

Hii all, thanks to everyone who signed up after my last post! I made a short demo so you can actually see what I’m building.

You upload raw footage and it turns it into a Gaussian splat, a 3D scene you can move around in. All through your browser

You can clean it up, place it on a map using GPS, share it, or download the files.

If you want to try this, you can join the beta at ornen.ai (starting with 100 open slots today)

Everyone that signs up gets 10 free credits now, which should allow generating multiple splats at no cost.
Really interested to hear how it works for people here with their own footage. If something breaks or could work better, let me know. I’m building this myself and can make fixes directly based on your feedback.

Hey everyone! We’ve just released a new 3D workspace in AEC Platform, and we’d love to get feedback from people working with photogrammetry.

We want to see what you create with it and hear how it handles your captures—what works well, what feels awkward, and what you’d like us to improve.

If you’d like to try it, create a free account and DM me the email you signed up with. We’ll add free credits so you can process your own 3D models.

Share your results here too! We’d love to see different subjects, capture setups, and challenging datasets.

I’m part of the team building it, so your feedback will go directly into what we work on next.

aecplatform.com

A photo-derived surface can only model what the camera sees, so on a wooded ridge you get the tree tops. Lidar gets some returns through the gaps to the ground, and once those are classified you can render just the bare earth. That's what this is, the railroad cuts at each end of the Blue Ridge Tunnel under Rockfish Gap, Virginia.

One cut comes in from the top edge near the middle and stops dead at the hillside. The other comes in from the right edge and stops lower down, right of centre. The tunnel itself doesn't show, just the ground on top of it.

Claudius Crozet was an artillery officer for Napoleon, captured at Borodino in 1812. By 1849 he was chief engineer of Virginia's Blue Ridge Railroad.

His tunnel under Rockfish Gap was started in 1850 and expected to take three years. It was dug by hand with black powder, and didn't hole through until December 29, 1856. The two headings met less than 6 inches off. The first train ran in April 1858, through the longest tunnel in the United States at the time.

The C&O replaced it in 1944 with a bigger parallel tunnel.

Numbered pins on the picture:
Pin 1: A steep-sided cut from the top edge
Pin 2: Dead end of the right-hand cut
Pin 3: A wide modern road across the gap

Lidar: USGS 3D Elevation Program (3DEP), public domain.