# Blender-Addon-Photogrammetry-Importer

**Repository Path**: mbt/Blender-Addon-Photogrammetry-Importer

## Basic Information

- **Project Name**: Blender-Addon-Photogrammetry-Importer
- **Description**: No description available
- **Primary Language**: Unknown
- **License**: MIT
- **Default Branch**: master
- **Homepage**: None
- **GVP Project**: No

## Statistics

- **Stars**: 0
- **Forks**: 0
- **Created**: 2025-08-24
- **Last Updated**: 2025-08-24

## Categories & Tags

**Categories**: Uncategorized

**Tags**: None

## README

# Blender Photogrammetry Importer
This repository contains a Blender addon to import results of several reconstruction libraries. In addition it allows to perform novel view synthesis using Neural Radiance Fields (NeRF).

## Compatibility

The latest release of the addon is currently compatible with **Blender 4.0.2 onwards**. For older Blender versions you might find a suitable release [here](https://github.com/SBCV/Blender-Addon-Photogrammetry-Importer/releases). 

## Supported Reconstruction Libraries and Point Cloud Data Formats

Supported photogrammetry libraries (data formats):

- [x] [Agisoft Metashape](https://www.agisoft.com/) (VisualSfM NVM) <sup>1</sup>
- [x] [Colmap](https://github.com/colmap/colmap)/[Glomap](https://github.com/colmap/glomap) (Model folders (BIN and TXT), dense workspaces, NVM, PLY)  
- [x] [Meshroom](https://alicevision.github.io/) (MG, JSON, SfM, PLY)
- [x] [MVE](https://github.com/simonfuhrmann/mve) (Workspaces) <sup>1</sup>
- [x] [Open3D](http://www.open3d.org/) (JSON, LOG, PLY) <sup>1</sup>
- [x] [OpenSfM](https://github.com/mapillary/OpenSfM) (JSON)
- [x] [OpenMVG](https://github.com/openMVG/openMVG) (JSON, NVM, PLY)
- [x] [Regard3D](https://www.regard3d.org/) (OpenMVG JSON)
- [x] [VisualSFM](http://ccwu.me/vsfm/) (NVM) <sup>1</sup>

Supported view synthesis libraries (data formats):
- [x] [Instant NGP](https://github.com/NVlabs/instant-ngp) (JSON)

In addition, the addon supports some common point cloud data formats:

- [x] [Polygon files](http://paulbourke.net/dataformats/ply/) (PLY) <sup>2</sup>
- [x] [Point Cloud Library files](https://github.com/PointCloudLibrary/pcl) (PCD) <sup>2</sup>
- [x] [LASer files](https://www.asprs.org/divisions-committees/lidar-division/laser-las-file-format-exchange-activities) (LAS) <sup>2,3</sup>
- [x] [LASzip files](https://laszip.org/) (LAZ) <sup>2,3,4</sup>
- [x] [Simple ASCII point files](https://www.cloudcompare.org/doc/wiki/index.php?title=FILE_I/O) (ASC, PTS, CSV) <sup>2</sup>

<sup>1</sup> Requires [Pillow](https://pypi.org/project/Pillow/) to read image sizes from disk.
<sup>2</sup> Requires [Pyntcloud](https://pypi.org/project/pyntcloud/) for parsing.
<sup>3</sup> Requires [Laspy](https://pypi.org/project/laspy/) for parsing.
<sup>4</sup> Requires [Lazrs](https://pypi.org/project/lazrs/) for parsing.

## Getting Started
- [Documentation](https://blender-photogrammetry-importer.readthedocs.io/en/latest) 
- [Installation Instructions](https://blender-photogrammetry-importer.readthedocs.io/en/latest/installation.html)
- [Troubleshooting](https://blender-photogrammetry-importer.readthedocs.io/en/latest/troubleshooting.html)
- [Customize Import/Export Options](https://blender-photogrammetry-importer.readthedocs.io/en/latest/customize.html)
- [Examples](https://blender-photogrammetry-importer.readthedocs.io/en/latest/examples.html)
- [Import Data](https://blender-photogrammetry-importer.readthedocs.io/en/latest/import.html)
- [Export Data](https://blender-photogrammetry-importer.readthedocs.io/en/latest/export.html)
- [Adjust Results (Scale Cameras and Points)](https://blender-photogrammetry-importer.readthedocs.io/en/latest/adjustment.html)
- [Ensure Camera and Point Alignment](https://blender-photogrammetry-importer.readthedocs.io/en/latest/alignment.html)
- [Point Cloud Visualization and Rendering](https://blender-photogrammetry-importer.readthedocs.io/en/latest/point_cloud.html)
- [Addon Usage with Python](https://blender-photogrammetry-importer.readthedocs.io/en/latest/python.html)
- [Read and Apply Calibration/Transformation Matrices](https://github.com/SBCV/Blender-Matrix-World-Addon)
- [Extending the Addon](https://blender-photogrammetry-importer.readthedocs.io/en/latest/extension.html)
- [Contribution](https://blender-photogrammetry-importer.readthedocs.io/en/latest/contribution.html)
- [Recent features / Changelog](https://blender-photogrammetry-importer.readthedocs.io/en/latest/changelog.html)

## Paper
If you use this library for scientific purposes, please consider to cite the following paper.

<a href="https://arxiv.org/pdf/2012.01044.pdf"><img class="image" align="left" width="150px" src="https://github.com/SBCV/Blender-Addon-Photogrammetry-Importer/blob/master/doc/images/paper_preview0p15.png"></a>
<a href="https://doi.org/10.5220/0010319801060112">[paper]</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2012.01044">[arxiv]</a><br>
```bibtex
@article{PhotogrammetryForModeling2021,
title={A Photogrammetry-based Framework to Facilitate Image-based Modeling and Automatic Camera Tracking},
author={Bullinger, Sebastian and Bodensteiner, Christoph and Arens, Michael},
booktitle={International Conference on Computer Graphics Theory and Applications},
year={2021}
}
```
<br clear="left"/>

## View Synthesis Examples
This addon allows to peform novel view synthesis for arbitrary cameras using NeRF (e.g. [Instant NGP](https://github.com/NVlabs/instant-ngp)). The left image shows a plain NeRF result and the right image an overlay with the corresponding point cloud.
<p float="left" align="middle">
  <img src="doc/images/view_synthesis_nerf.jpg" width="48%" />
  <img src="doc/images/view_synthesis_nerf_point_cloud.jpg" width="48%" /> 
</p>

## Reconstruction Examples
This repository contains an example Colmap model. The following image shows the imported camera poses, image planes and point cloud in Blender's 3D view.
![alt text](doc/images/import_result.jpg)
The input images of the Colmap model are located here: [https://github.com/openMVG/ImageDataset_SceauxCastle](https://github.com/openMVG/ImageDataset_SceauxCastle).

The addon computes an animated camera with corresponding background images from the reconstructed camera poses.
![alt text](doc/images/camera_animation_background.gif)

There is also an import option that allows to interpolate the reconstructed camera poses.
![alt text](doc/images/camera_animation.gif)

In addition, the addon allows to import meshes contained in the workspaces of specific libraries. Manually imported meshes can also be aligned with the corresponding reconstruction by following the instructions [here](https://blender-addon-photogrammetry-importer.readthedocs.io/en/latest/import.html#meshes). 
![alt text](doc/images/mesh_3d_view.jpg)

The addon offers two options to represent the point clouds (OpenGL and Geometry Nodes). The addon provides different panels to adjust the appearance and to render these point clouds - see [Point Cloud Visualization and Rendering](https://blender-addon-photogrammetry-importer.readthedocs.io/en/latest/point_cloud.html). The following images show an example represented with OpenGL (top) and Geometry Nodes (bottom). 

![alt text](doc/images/import_result_opengl.jpg)
![alt text](doc/images/import_result_geometry_nodes.jpg)

In addition, the addon allows to visualize depth maps (reconstructed with Colmap or MVE) as point clouds.
<p float="left" align="middle">
  <img src="doc/images/depth_map_3d_view.jpg" width="48%" />
  <img src="doc/images/depth_map_from_camera.jpg" width="48%" /> 
</p>