Friday, September 2nd, 2011 Posted by Jim Thacker

See the best videos created using Project Photofly

Last week, CG Channel readers Rumble Studios got in touch to show us some test footage recreated from still images using Project Photofly 2.0, Autodesk’s new cloud-based photogrammetry service.

The results (above) were pretty cool, which prompted us to hunt around online to round up the best of the other work created in the three months since Photofly’s public launch.

Everything but the kitchen sink
Most of the early tests were more or less the sort of objects you’d expect to see recreated using image-based modelling. Videos posted by YouTube users show everything from desktop ornaments to bikes and cars.

Oddly enough, though, it’s this pair of running shoes that gives the most impressive demo of Photofly’s ability to recreate convex surfaces.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X74Gp6MU8uw

Now, however, people are starting to get more inventive. Autodesk itself showed that the system could do people, with its much-viewed model of Chris Anderson from Wired magazine.

But this bust of Develop3D‘s Martyn Day (what is it about Photofly and journalists?) is arguably even more impressive – if only because it shows the top of his head.

But perhaps the most impressive projects created using Photofly so far have been the environments. This recreation of a Pueblo ruin from south-eastern Utah was created from 44 separate images:

While this reconstruction of Mount Rushmore uses entirely crowd-sourced images:

And Rumble Studios shows what happens when you pull the whole lot together with some HDRI lighting and camera tracking. Up to 70 individual images were used per shot in this recreation of Riga, Latvia.

But the most comprehensive demonstration of what you can do if you pull Photofly 3D data together with other VFX techniques is this promo for Australian electronic act Hunz, created by IV Motion. The result is rather reminscent of The Mill’s (presumably rather higher-budget) video for Go To Sleep by Radiohead.

Pretty impressive for a free service, we reckon. If you’ve got any Photofly test footage of your own, drop us a line at news [at] cgchannel.com.

Visit the Project Photofly website