I’m not just a planner or a GIS man!   As part of my work at Garsdale Design Limited, I help in the assessment and survey of historic buildings (in conjunction with our Heritage Specialist).   One such building I am working on at the moment requires a nice measured and detailed drawing, as part of a planning application.

We’re using a piece of software called Photomodeler to build up an accurate 3D (and 2D if you really want) model of this lovely old farmhouse in the Yorkshire Dales National Park.  The process invloves calibration of your chosen camera (preferably a good quality one), then the taking of a large amount of photos from at least two opposing angles of all parts of your building.  

Once imported into Photomodeler you need to mark the same point one each photo, and if you’ve done it correctly you will get yourself a pretty accurate model.   We also do a good amount of measuring to ensure that the model does indeed remain accurate…

We’ve used this method before and I have to say the software is excellent and relatively easy to use.   Creating a 3D model is also great fun and once finished is incredibly satisfying.    Photomodeler allows you to do accurate drawings without spending as much time on site (which can be a cost saving!).

We then export our model to a DXF format (3D or 2D), but you can export to kml and a variety of other formats (see screen capture to the left).    Photomodeler also allows for the photos to be projected onto your surfaces.

Anyway I really recommend that if you are interested you give it a go, Photomodeler isn’t just for buildings as their marketing will state! 

You can also view your new model in stereo view if you have those nifty 3D red/blue glasses…ooooo

Photomodeler Website is here
We bought our software and subsequent training from Photarc