✅ When is a job ready?
When a job status transitions from PREPARING to READYjob’s status is DO SOLVE, the Inspect Photos Images button will be made available - taking you to the directory of the exr files (these are to be used by photogrammetry).
The status bar at the bottom of the main window will also indicate that the selected job is ready for Photogrammetry once the preparation is complete.
📐 Begin open the photogrammetry images when clicked. The images in this directory must be used for photogrammetry for Marso to work correctly, however they can be adjusted as long as the name, shape, and orientation of each image is unaffected.
📐 Run your Photogrammetry
You can now proceed with your normal photogrammetry reconstruction workflow. You must use the exror jpg files created in the previous step.
We recommend using either: currently support Agisoft Metashape Pro or Reality Capture as your photogrammetry application.
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Marso will break when photogrammetry uses other image files; e.g camera jpeg or manually made |
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We plan to offer ‘jpeg’ and ‘png’ export from Marso in future builds |
You can freely edit the contents of the exr files, e.g. changing brightness and contrast, to improve the reconstruction, so long as the resolution and the file name are kept the same.
📝 Checklist
3D Mesh and camera solve
It is important to get a good solve of the cameras within the samescene, poorly solved cameras can lead to artifacts in the material measurement later on. We recommend attempting to re-align any bad camera solves or deleting removing those cameras from the 3D solve all together.
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There is a polygon limit dertemined by the amound of VRAM available on your system, exceedingly largse meshed can crash MarsoA high number of polygons in the mesh may cause Marso to exceed the available VRAM on your system. If this occurs, simplify the mesh and reattempt the process. Marso can does produce high highly detailed normals even on medium to low poly meshes. See Examples |
When drawing a bounding box around your subject for mesh reconstruction, it is important to also include any stands or supports (if not using the mask mesh feature). This additional geometry will ensure that pixels are correctly traced onto this geometry and not onto the subject itself. Using one of the lower cameras (as shown below) can be a helpful reference to see how much geometry is required to avoid unwanted pixels being projected onto the subject.
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Using a Mask Mesh will allow you to reconstruct just the subject, whilst avoiding occlusion issues by providing a Subject-Mesh & Mask-Mesh |
UV Unwrapped Mesh
The 3D mesh that Marso will create textures for will require a UV unwrap. By default, a 3D mesh within a photogrammetry application will not have a UV, so you must first run the texturing process within the application or UV unwrap manually.
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(The mesh must have a single unwrap not multiple)
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For optimal UVs we recommend generating the texture at the same resolution or lower resolution than what you wish to output from Marso. Example: A RealityCapture texture of 1024px can be used to create a Marso texture of 1024 > 8192px , but may create artifacts if Marso attempts to create a 512px texture. |
Scale the Scene
It is essential that the 3D scene is correctly scaled, we suggest using makers markers to automatically set the scale of a scene within Reality Capture of RealityCapture or Agisoft Metashape Pro.
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Agisoft Metashape Standard does not offer a way to automatically set scale. For best practice, we recommend using Blender (a free 3D application) to do this by hand.
Open a new ‘General’ blender scene and Delete all of the Default objects, you scene should look like this: To Import an Alembic file : After importing, the mesh and cameras should be in your scene. Create an empty object, this will be used to apply the same scale to the mesh and all the cameras: Select everything except the ‘Empty’: Then Shift+Drag the selected items into the empty: It should look like this: Using the measure too Then compare this distance to the real life distance. If you divide this distance by the real life distance you end up with a scale factor. On the object properties menu for the ‘Empty’, insert the computed scale factor into the three scale input boxes: Use the measure tool again to confirm the distance is now correct. Now select all cameras and the mesh, press Alt+P to bring up the Clear Parent dialog, and select Clear and Keep Transformation: Delete the ‘Empty’ from the scene, your outline should only have the cameras and mesh now: Now export the scaled alembic: This scaled alembic is the one you want to select during the run dialog in Marso. |
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This can be done quite easily by using markers and setting a scale bar. |
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To write . . . This can be done quite easily by using markers and setting a constraint, then updating the alignment to apply the constraint. |
Export Alembic Mesh & ST Maps
Export an Alembicabcfile with cameras & normals enabled, also export an ST Map as anexrwhich will be used to account for lens distortion. It is important to use an ST map created within the photogrammetry application rather than
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It is important to use an ST map that has been created within the photogrammetry application you have used to solve the 3D scene to avoid any discrepancies. |
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Exporting an ST MapIn Agisoft Metashapes, by default, all cameras should solve into a single group resulting in them all sharing the same lens distortion profile. Go to :  You should see a single-camera group on the left pane. 
Switch from the  Set the Save as Type to be :  Exporting an AlembicTo export the alembic :  After clicking save, an Export Model window will appear. You must enable :
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Tips and Tricks
For best results, we recommend using Reality Capture (which is now free!) or Agisoft Metashape Professional. Agisoft Metashape Standard will work but does require manually scaling the 3D data which can lead to human error.
Reality Capture Workflow
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Agisoft Metashape | Professional
Exporting ST Maps:Go to
Exporting AlembicGo to
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Optional UV Editing Photogrammetry → .abc → UV Unwrap → .abc → Marso Just be sure to adhere to the following:
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