3DF Zephyr Lite Steam Edition News

Good news, everyone!

3DF Zephyr 6.0 is finally out now!

Without further ado, check out the new major features with this video below:

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3DF Zephyr Lite 6.0 Steam Edition Full Changelog

+ Photoconsistency improvements (speed and accuracy)
+ MVS Improvements (speed and thin structure recovery)
+ New faster and efficient modular save zep format
+ New volume of interest to select the region of interest
+ New sphere detection
+ SfM general accuracy improvements
+ SfM speed improvements on large datasets
+ General multithreaded improvements (improved speed)
+ Faster mesh decimation
+ Improved advanced settings interface
+ Improved speed for data loading on project wizard and constraints tables
+ New map widget
+ New hole filling filter with iterative selection
+ Added Planar UV texture reprojection for quickly creating normal/albedo maps on planar surfaces
+ Added surface scan preset (replaces close-range)
+ Added the possibility to load custom skybox
+ Added global ETA to the progress bar
+ Faster PNG saving
+ Better pure rotation photo handling
+ Alembic .abc export support
+ Added AVI export format
+ Added Bubble view import Faro .fls format
+ Mesh and dense point cloud filters
+ Added Horizontal distance in quick measurements
+ Improved drag and drop
+ Removed cameras limit of three photos
+ Added tons of unknown and creative bugs. Just kidding 🙂
+ Camera selection is now synchronized on the navigation bar
+ Literally tons of minor fixes

The 3Dflow world cup 2020 starts next week!

Win 3DF Zephyr, a Prusa 3D printer and Sketchfab subscriptions in the photogrammetry contest sponsored by 3Dflow at its third consecutive edition, the 3Dflow World Cup 2020.

3D scan. Share. Win.

Like every year, the contest is not themed, meaning you will be able to scan your favourite subjects to compete: our panel of judges will pick the best models that will advance to the final stage!

No purchase is necessary! Everyone can play: register a free 3Dflow account and start creating your 3D models with 3DF Zephyr Free, 3DF Zephyr lite or 3DF Zephyr - if you need a free evaluation key, you can get one from https://www.3dflow.net/en/3df-zephyr-evaluation-download-page/ at any time!

Learn More at http://worldcup.3dflow.net or join our Discord ( discord.3dflow.net ) , Facebook Academy Facebook Group ( academy.3dflow.net ) or forum ( forum.3dflow.net ) !

Good luck!

What's new in 3DF Zephyr 5.0?

With this update 3DF Zephyr is significantly faster than all previous releases and the quality of the reconstruction is now significanlty better: the new photoconsistency filter allows for much more beautiful and realistic sharp edges, the out of core new algorithm allows to process huge datasets at a much lower memory footprint, and our world-class texture algorithm now produces even sharper and better textures.

This is the biggest technology update that 3DF Zephyr has ever received in a single release, and as tradition, all 3DF Zephyr versions (including Free and Lite) are getting the same technology improvements.

This update is free for 3DF Zephyr Lite Steam Edition too!

3DF Zephyr now integrates WIC for faster image loading and better raw file format support - make sure to install the WIC native plugin first, or Zephyr will fallback to the previous imaging engine.

3DF Zephyr is now also available in the Turkish and French languages, and among the many quality of life improvements we have a new toolbar to improve productivity, spline support in drawing elements, updated native laser scanner support plugins, and much more: make sure to check this link for a more descriptive changelog.

Full changelog:

+ Out of core mesh processing
+ Significant SfM improvements both for accuracy and speed
+ WIC is now the default imaging engine
+ Merge workspace improvements (can now specify which elements to merge)
+ Photoconsistency computation is now split in chunk to minimize memory usage
+ Photoconsistency speed improvements
+ Texture computation is now divided in chunks to minimize memory usage
+ Added edge filter in the photoconsistency computation.
+ Texturing improvements and better management of triangles without valid reprojection.
+ New Dark Blue skin
+ New 3DF Zephyr logo
+ Added French translation
+ Added Turkish translation
+ Added pivot support on the gizmo
+ Added full resolution image loading on the rendering show view
+ Zephyr cache is now compressed to minimize disk usage
+ User can now specify an additional autosave folder
+ User can now specify a custom field of view in the decomposer tool
+ Faster rendering
+ Duplicated camera names are now disambiguated better when moving a zep file to another location
+ Point inspection tool improved
+ User can now define selections of meshes and point clouds from any planar polyline in the workspace
+ Added command to "clone and make structured"
+ Exposed full parameters during marker detection
+ Added mask inversion for Masquerade
+ Masquerade automagic button now starts form the previous computation
+ Improved resolution when exporting an orthophoto to pdf
+ Fixed an issue which caused deadlock during surface computation in some rare cases
+ Improved level curves extraction
+ Added mesh wrapping with a template mesh with known topology (experimental feature)
+ Can now add an entire folder during project wizard
+ Added possibility to transfer texture mesh (instead of recomputing it) when importing a mesh with UV maps
+ Added full projection threshold control in the marker detection dialog
+ Rotated photos are now also rotated in the control point selection dialog
+ Fixed an issue with bundle adjustment on large datasets and variable parameters
+ Added a combo box to change control points to the edit control point dialog
+ Added a photoconsistency and blurriness checks during the orthophoto creation
+ You can now define a background color for orthophotos
+ Export dialogs now keep you previous checkbox choices when you switch formats
+ Improved image I/O speed and undistorted image creation
+ Preset rebalancing
+ Added command to "reset" camera
+ Fixed an issue with progress bar showing the text of a previous job
+ Added the possibility to use only check-points to generate a report in the control points alignment dialog
+ Loading calibrated focal length from images storing the value
+ Fixed an issue that prevents to send dump files on certain configurations
+ Textured mesh rendering speed up
+ Added function to convert a surface drawing element to a mesh
+ Fixed a crash when importing a point cloud with few points
+ Fixed a crash when using the densified mesh enhancer workflow
+ Fixed an issue with marker detection and unstable triangulation
+ Fixed an issue of missing triangles when importing a quad mesh for retexturing
+ Fixed a crash during Cuda check at startup
+ Fixed a crash related to key points animation
+ Fixed a crash during stereo point clouds merging
+ Minor fixes

We’re happy to announce the new 3Dflow World Cup edition!


The grand prize is a Valve Index VR Kit, a 3DF Zephyr Aerial 12 months license, 6 months Sketchfab Pro subscription and much more! Other prizes will be awarded to first eight ranked players!





What is the 3Dflow World Cup contest?


The contest is a way to show off your photogrammetry skills using 3DF Zephyr – everyone is welcome, it’s all in good fun and you can win prizes we’re sure you’re going to like!


How to enter


You need to register a 3Dflow account if you don’t own one already.


From July, 29th, 2019, you will be able to login to https://worldcup.3dflow.net/ in order to submit your 3D models – create the using 3DF Zephyr (no purchase necessary - you can download 3DF Zephyr Free or download a free trial for the other 3DF Zephyr versions, Lite, Pro and Aerial).


When submitting your first entry, you will be able to pick and adopt your favourite nation that you will represent during the World Cup – no need to pick the nation where you live in, it’s just for fun :)


Last year, Croatia, represented by Nedo, won the first place – are you ready to bring your team to victory? If so, go make your 3D model now :) submissions open on July, 29th, 2019!

Good news, everyone!


3DF Zephyr 4.500 is ready for download!



So what’s new? A lot of improvements, as usual, in both the core technology and the user experience as well!

This major update took a little longer than you’re used to, but we really think it was worth the wait!

The core technology now yields even better results than before, with an all-new detail enhancement filter for mesh, a new UV-packing algorithm, and much more!

The user experience is also improved significantly with a lot of new tools and improvements, such as the option to generate normal maps and displacement maps directly in 3DF Zephyr.
 

Changelog:

• Better detail extraction during the mvs/mesh extraction
• The mesh enhancement filter has been improved to extract more details
• The multiview stereo has been speeded up further
• Better UV packing algorithm during texture generation
• Raised internal resolution (The single image resolution can now be bigger)
• All our core libraries for (3D engine, Math, GUI) have been updated to the latest version with several bug fixes.
• In order to optimize the computation, mesh and dense point cloud will be computed one shot by default. It will be still possible to generate a separate point cloud if needed.
• New General preset category suitable for most cases
• The texturing generation page now have presets as the other pages
• You can bake normals maps (Object and Tangent space) starting from a high poly mesh to any textured mesh.
• All the workspace elements can be now moved up or down and organized in any order
• The alignment tools dialog has been reorganized for better usage
• 3Dconnexion mouse support
• Corrected an issue and improved the flat shading rendering shader
• The “Copy all” command in Masquerade now works instantly
• Added an option to extract all the frames from a video sequence
• Up to 10x faster frames from video extraction
• Fixed a bug in the keypoints animator
• Degenerate tetrahedra management has been improved, and it will lead to a better meshing in some cases