How to Take the Best Photos for 3D Models in Google Earth^TM

Taking good photos is the first step to creating a great looking professional 3D model. Remember your model can only be as good as the photos the 3Doogle Team has to work with. While many people would prefer to take their own photos, you can hire a professional photographer to ensure you get the highest quality photos. If you choose to take your own photos these instructions on "How to Take the Best Photos for 3D Models" will help you to take the best possible photos for 3Doogle to build your model.

This tutorial is a simple guide to taking photos specific for model building and is not intended to cover the basics of using a camera or other phtography techniques.

Equipment esentials include the following:

Camera
Camera tripod or other mobile platform that can be used to stabalize the camera.

When taking photos for a 3D model the key is to take lots of photos. You can never have too many photos. For an average structure with ten to fifteen faces you want to take at least 30 photos. For more complex or larger sized structures you could take as many as one hundred photos to ensure that every angle and characteristic of your building or structure is represented in the collection.

What is a face? Geometry. any of the bounding surfaces of a solid figure: a cube has six faces.

The red color on this cube represents one face of the cube. The red color on this building represents one of the many faces of the building.


Every structure or building is made up of many faces and often a myriad of angles more complex than this simple cube. Capturing each of these faces and angles is important to the accuracy of your model.

In adition to capturing each face it is equally important to capture them acurately. This means taking the photo from a perpendicular forward facing position or right angle relative to the face and from the same distance.

A right angle is an angle with a measurement of 90 degrees. Walls of buildings are usually at right angles to the floor. Two things that are at right angles are called "perpendicular".



Lets take a picture of one face on our cube in relation to one face on our building. The camera icon represents the position of the you and your camera. The green highlight represents taking the photo of the cubes surface from a perpendicular view or correct angle. The red highlight represents taking the photo of the cubes surface from an incorrect angle and would not be very good for building your model.



Not only should the photo angle be correct but the distance from the building should remain the same in each photo. Taking one photo from ten meters away from the building and taking another from five meters away would result in inconsistent photos and not be good for creating the best 3D model. Keeping your distance from the building or structure the same is important to ensure the scale and alignment of architectural characteristics.

Once the entire building or structure has been captured you will want to take three or four photos from a distance that allows the entire structure to be captured. It is also good to include photos of any part of the structure that appears to be geometricly complex, such as arches, or other complex faces and angles.

The following diagram represents the correct angle and distance of a good photo shoot for creating 3D models.