Long gone are the days when architectural projects only depend on computer graphics and static images. Today, aerial rendering has become an invaluable tool in the architectural field. These aerial renderings are made possible thanks to drone footage that offers a bird’s-eye view of landscapes and buildings. They provide a different perspective from renderings taken from the ground level.
This is the very reason why more and more 3D architectural animation services develop drone footage for architectural projects. They bring a long list of benefits to the table, which are a big help for developers, architects, and clients alike.
Cad Crowd has worked with the best architectural companies to help them find the best drone and animation experts. We are an industry leader in providing outsourcing services for design, architectural, and engineering companies. Here’s what we learned about how you can utilize drone footage:
🚀 Table of contents
Reasons to use drone footage for 3D architectural animation
3D architectural animation services capture the most minor details and highlight every single angle of a particular structure. Its beauty and tiny intricacies can be captured from the sky, a vantage point where the structure can be seen in all its glory. However, viewing the whole structure on the ground level on the ground level is impossible. With the help of a drone, you can create videos and still images that can be used to create a stunning 3D model that will serve as a realistic representation of a structure.
Structural design services and 3D architectural animation can come in handy for large-scale projects. Drone footage gives you the chance to work and experiment with distinct points of view and to develop models that are guaranteed to capture the attention of your clients. Creating top-of-the-line 360-degree videos can also give your service an edge over your competition. You can impress existing and potential clients and make them loyal repeat customers who might even get you referrals.
In addition to all these benefits, the most exciting thing about drone footage is that it can be very cost-effective when used to create 3D architectural animations. With the help of this drone footage, you can identify and spot any potential problems with the architectural structure before the start of the actual construction. This will help you and your client save money and time throughout the project.
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How to develop drone footage for 3D architectural models
Using drones to capture aerial images and stitch everything together is believed to be the fastest and easiest technique for developing a 3D architectural model. This is how most people do it these days and offers several advantages. However, using the video footage captured by a drone as the basis for the 3D model can often provide better results than you can ever imagine.
Why is that so? It’s because even just one video that captures the whole structure from each angle already comes with tons of keyframes that highlight all the nooks and crannies of the structure. Imagine capturing thousands of different images to achieve the same result. It would surely take up a lot of your time as you try to stitch together every single image to create a 3D animation of the same quality.
It’s the very reason why drone footage is worth the shot. However, you still need to remember that it might be a bit time-consuming and somewhat tricky to use this particular process of making 3D architectural animation for your architectural design company. However, you can have peace of mind knowing that it would be more rewarding and something you can perfect with some practice.
Below are the key steps you need to follow to come up with the most stunning drone footage:
Choose the perfect time of the day
This first step is extremely important since you want your 3D animation to present a certain structure in the best light possible, in the most literal sense. This means that your drone footage must be taken at the perfect time of the day. Mornings are considered to be the best time of day for capturing stunning drone videos. It is when you can capture the best lighting that can help highlight the structure in question in the most enticing way. You can also shoot around noon to prevent long shadows.
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Detect and match features
After you finish recording your drone footage and upload it to the 3D rendering software you’re using, it’s time to analyze the different frames in the footage so that the same features can be detected and matched with each other. This is what you call a linear method for the reconstruction of points and lines.
For this step to be executed effectively, it’s important to familiarize yourself with the concepts of descriptors and detectors. The latter helps detect features, while the former helps match them. Every time you extract the two images’ respective features, a descriptor in vector form can help you identify the corresponding feature pairs and then match them from one image to another.
Recover structure and motion
In this third step, you will recover information regarding the drone camera’s motion and the structure of the captured scene. This means that you have to recover the position and orientation parameters of the camera to help you calculate the accuracy of the 3D coordinates of each feature within the video frames. The MLESAC, MSAC, or RANSAC algorithms can help expert technical animators carry out the whole process of matching data effectively.
Stereo mapping
Stereo mapping in 3D animation and modeling is the step that involves the use of the structure recovered during the third step to come up with the dense map of the particular scene in question. A stereo model is made of every image or frame in the video captured from various angles to create a realistic projection that offers stereo vision.
3D modeling
The last step in developing a 3D model from drone footage involves adjusting lighting and adding textures to create the finished project. This is the time for you to polish the entire video to ensure that the 3D model is indeed the perfect representation of the structure that showcases the design in the best light possible. It is also when you can add the rest of the surrounding elements to help improve your 3D model further and give it an exceptionally realistic view. These elements may include flowers, trees, cars, and even people passing by.
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Tips and pointers to remember when capturing drone footage
Shooting videos and images using a drone might seem daunting and challenging at first, but you can easily master it with constant practice to create exceptional architectural visualization services. As the adage goes, practice makes perfect, so don’t hesitate to go out to the vast open spaces where you are allowed to operate and fly drones and practice capturing footage with them as much as possible.
However, before you go out and practice flying your drone, see to it that you don’t make the same mistakes that many rookies commit. These include being inconsistent with whatever they are trying to film. When you’re shooting images, see to it that you cover enough area as you do so to get sufficient overlap between the captured images. This is very important to ensure that you will stitch everything together perfectly.
Getting the necessary permit or license before you fly a drone is also very important. The last thing you’d want to happen is to be charged with a hefty fine because you flew your drone even without a license or because you did so in a restricted area. It means that you have to obtain the necessary permit and familiarize yourself with the different UAV regulations before you consider reaching for the clouds to capture impressive drone footage for your 3D architectural animation.
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The bottom line
As far as 3D architectural animation services are concerned, the state-of-the-art artistry of drone footage is a force to reckon with as it takes designs to soaring heights. There is no denying that drone footage is now changing the game for drafting and design companies, and services that use it can look forward to creating more captivating architectural projects that will entice clients and turn their dreams into tangible realities.
How Cad Crowd can help
Cad Crowd is an industry-leading platform that can connect you to the most reliable 3D architectural animation services that use drone footage, which is perfect for showcasing your architectural projects. Contact us today, and let us help you reach for the skies! Request a quote today.
