Photscan 1.4 Beta – Animation

A New Version

Our friends at Agisoft have released a beta edition of Photoscan Pro 1.4. With all releases there will be some additions that get our pulses racing. Animation is one such feature. Having the ability to quickly create simple short videos of our models has been on our wish list for a while. With the latest release, such a tool is available.

Animation 

Now before we get too excited, the current animation tools will not replace full blown animation but we do get a new pane to control over things like track, speed, timing etc.

The Animation Pane (left) and Settings (right).

And with just a few clicks I created this short flyaround video of the port train alongside the SS Thistlegorm:

Two tracks are available; Horizontal and Vertical. Created using a horizontal track, a simple flyaround authored in less time than it took to think about and write this sentence.

Using a vertical track on the Deeper Dorset P47-D crash site in Weymouth Bay gave us a very nice flypast overview of the wreckage:

Exporting the Video

With the animation created the Save icon exports an AVI.

Exporting the video file

Right now just the AVI format is supported.

Conclusions

The tools in the beta edition will not replace full blown animation applications, rather it gives us an opportunity to quickly create short videos that highlight the 3D work we create.

In the very recent past media companies have requested short animation fly arounds. Basic content to be added to the broadcast content with a voiceover that does not need CGI or complex animation. This feature will deliver this kind of video very quickly indeed.

We really like this addition.