Going back in time, there was 123D Catch and related processing engines. Basically, it was a tool that took photos and turned them into something real in 3D. There was also something called Remake.

Now, we have Recap Photo, which basically does the same things. Over time, the processing engines have improved. Recap Photo is part of your Recap Pro licence, and now integrated into your Recap Pro install. It looks something like this when you install the latest version of Recap (I downloaded the web installer from manage.autodesk.com):

Once installed, you can start the standalone ReCap Photo app:

 

Features of ReCap Photo include:

  • A new photogrammetry engine that can process up to 1,000 photos, a 4x improvement from the previous maximum of 250 photos (note: using the cloud service consumes Autodesk Cloud Credits)
  • The ability to set GPCs (Ground Control Points, survey points) in any coordinate system.
  • New functionality to support vertical and nadir photos (photos taken by drones and UAVs at 90 degrees above the site)
  • View your 3D photo-textured mesh
  • View the geolocated orthographic view, zoom in and out, and add measurements, tags, and annotations.
  • Share the project, including its additional metadata (measurements, tags, annotations), with anyone.
  • Merge laser scan point clouds with UAV-based point clouds.

From this post http://blogs.autodesk.com/recap/introducing-recap-photo/

I was speaking to a surveyor recently and he indicated that he believes in around 2 years time, point clouds will be a “commodity” that almost anyone can produce. Devices to scan 3D spaces are becoming more powerful and more accessible, and essentially anyone can use them.  For example, have you seen Google’s Project Tango?

Along with Recap 360 and other iOS apps for scanning rooms and converting to 3D models, the question soon will not be “how do we scan this?” The question will be:

What do we do with all of this scanned, real world spatial data?

Learn more:
ATAP Project Tango – Google

From viewing the video, it looks like you just:

  1. Take some pictures with your drone and GoPro
  2. Upload to Recap 360 and make sure you get an RCS output
  3. Link it into Revit and do your conceptual modelling
  4. Visualize the model using the site context from the linked RCS point cloud

Easy!

Here’s the video:

Heads-up https://twitter.com/Alex_BIM_AJP/status/479897809634988033

To get a Free trial of Autodesk ReCap Pro click on the following link: ReCap Free Trial

You can use Autodesk ReCap 360 now for free if you have a Autodesk 360 account. If you don’t have an account, you can sign up for free by clicking on the following link: Autodesk ReCap 360

Read more:
http://www.cadlinecommunity.co.uk/Blogs/Blog.aspx?ScoId=f542a2ef-8a1f-4223-af91-6d52aea299b0