Re-use Alignment
This short tutorial explains how to go about using a set of parameters over and over again (for example when doing full-body scans) and to make the workflow much faster. That is when extended Metadata (XMP) come into play. Read on.
- XMPs are associated with images. That is to say that if you have image1.jpg and image1.xmp, then the software will automatically load these together (providing they are in the same source folder) and set camera parameters of the image1.jpg according to the image1.xmp.
- "ImageFile.xmp" overrides data stored in image exif.
- You can find a special button for exporting this information file in the Export part of the alignment tab. Here is the dialog which pops up after clicking it:
Camera Poses
This part is especially important, so we will have a closer look at it in a separate paragraph in which you will learn about how a camera pose will be exported for a particular image, depending on your choice in these export parameters:
Depending on how much you trust your registration, you can select the following options or you can also choose not to export camera poses:
Export as draft This will treat poses as an imperfect draft to be optimized in the future. The draft mode functions also as a flight log.
Export as exact if you trust the alignment absolutely. By choosing this option, you are saying to the application that poses are precise, but the global position, orientation, and scale is not known.
Export as locked This is the same as the exact option with the difference that the camera position and calibration will not be changed, when locked.
Further you can choose what more to export:
Merge with existing XMP files When set to True, files in common will be replaced by new ones, and new files will be added.
Export rigging setup Select to export rig membership information. If False, only positions/orientations are exported - like they were not in rigs.
Export camera calibration groups Select to export the information on the created calibration groups. More about calibration groups: here.
Include editor options Export editor states, e.g. enabled/disabled flags for texturing, meshing, and similar.
Replace EXIF GPS with optimized values Force replacing original GPS coordinates with the ones calculated during alignment.
Additional Information
Take a look at a sample xmp file content:
- As for the workflow, XMP files should be exported after alignment (when you are satisfied with it).
- To re-use the settings from particular alignment, just export its XMP files, a new project with a new set of images named identically as the reference XMPs, the XMPs into the new image folder, and align the scene. The new scene will come in the same coordinates as the original one. This way you can also easily load a reconstruction box to clip a scene and so on.
- Add "_common.xmp" to the image folder to change the settings of all the images in it.
- Remember, you can simply delete the XMPs anytime and/or replace them with new ones.
