old buiding measurements

[ajvbochove]

What is the easiest way to measure buidings that already exsist?

The office I work for still works the old way: with pen and paper...

I'm looking for a modern digital (not to expensive) way.

Is there an easy way with digital camera, 3d studio max and autocad?

Already tried the Camera Tracker Utility in Max, but I wonder if there is another way...

For exact measurements it still needs a on-the-job measurement, I know!

I need fast and easy (almost accurate) drawings.

Perhaps: Model in Max, Solprof in AutoCAD for technical drawings?

 

Thanks for replies (hopefully will it make the job easier).

[tcorbett]

Unless you have the funding to set up a laser scanner on site, the best way to get accurate measurements is going to be field measuring.

 

If those options are not available, see if the city has some drawings on file. Survey drawings or property maps will give you a good idea of the size of the building in plan. Sometimes these also contain roof elevation heights.

 

Then there is the old trick of knowing a standard building unit size and counting them. For example, standard brick size for a US building - 3 courses = 8 inches. So if I count 108 courses of brick on my elevation, I know that measurement is 24'.

 

If you have a plan and a good idea of the elevation, try eyeballing it based on the photos, since camera matching is only as good as the data point you use to match it with.

[IC]

Yup there's no easy (and cheap) way.

One of the guys in here spent 4 days counting bricks on digital photographs of a warehouse we're converting.

 

Two days later we got the original drawings from the Council archive.

[ajvbochove]

See that I have some measurements and photo's.

I go to the location to get some photo's and measurements

Sometime I use the Camera Tracker Utility in Max, to ad some 'detail' in the drawing (I've got some points and there coordinates).

After that I export the file to AutoCAD for the dimension.

I was wondering if there is some experience with a Total-Station or something like that?

Are there more of you that use a Camera Tracker or something else?

 

Thanks.

[oluv]

ever tried http://www.photomodeler.com/ ?

 

download the demo and see if it fulfills your requirements. you will need a calibrated camera though, but you can calibrate any camera with their tools.

 

when calibrated you can get perfectly exact results from your photos and directly build 3d models out of them that get automatically textured.

[ajvbochove]

Thanks Olaf,

 

This is one of the answers I'm looking for.

Do you use it a lot? What is your experience with the program?

What's the price/ afford?

[oluv]

Do you use it a lot? What is your experience with the program?

What's the price/ afford?

 

no unfortunately i don't use it at all. but a friend of mine is photogrammeter and he is using it all the time, he loves it. he showed me some of his projects, and although it is a bit of a procedure to get a finished model, the efforts are worth it i think.

 

there are other similar programs around eg. realviz image modeler: http://www.realviz.com/

 

there is also a trial available. you could try them all and see which works best for you. image modeler is not cheap 1300€ i have no idea what photomodeler costs, but i guess it is similar, maybe a bit more.

 

best regards, o.