I saw an ad for the first time today for this: www.iphotomeasure.com
It’s software that lets you place a target on a house and take a pic with your digital camera. Then you load it into your computer and you have all the measurements in the picture.
This would save me hours of taking measurements on houses for remodels.
Has anyone ever heard of this or have any experience with it?
Legal Disclaimer: The preceeding comments are for entertainment purposes only and are in no way to be construed as professional advice. The reader of these comments agrees to hold harmless the poster, EJCinc, from any and all claims that EJCinc offered professional advice, ideas, or comments to the reader that may or may not have resulted in the damage, injury, or death to the readers property or person.
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Have never seen device mentioned. Followed link, took tour, etc. 7.5" target as a reference in the photo. I'm highly skeptical, but I have been wrong before.
Be aware that unless all dimensions sought are in the same plane as the target and the "film plane" of the camera is also parallel to the plane of the target - all bets are off on much accuracy.
Jim
Never underestimate the value of a sharp pencil or good light.
Edited 4/5/2007 5:31 pm ET by JTC1
In the pat day or two someone posted about a technology for templating countertops that utilizes "targets" placed about the tops of the base cabinets and then photographed.
Likely similiar technology.
Perhaps a search will find it for you.
[email protected]
I knew something wasn't right from the little photogrametry I've done. In the video, they say "just have your customer take a picture, etc etc." What they neglect to mention is that you need to include a target in the photo. I can think of several problems with their approach, but let's just say I won't run out to buy it...PaulB
A company we deal with uses that system and it works very well.
But your right I wonder about the accuracy if your taking a shot of the exterior of a house and are at a little bit of an angle it would throw off everything.
Guess I'll stick to the tape measure for now.Legal Disclaimer: The preceeding comments are for entertainment purposes only and are in no way to be construed as professional advice. The reader of these comments agrees to hold harmless the poster, EJCinc, from any and all claims that EJCinc offered professional advice, ideas, or comments to the reader that may or may not have resulted in the damage, injury, or death to the readers property or person.
I've done sketches from photos. I used the height of the door, we all know is 83" as my standard, then used simple ratios to "guestimate" everything else.
blue
"...
keep looking for customers who want to hire YOU.. all the rest are looking for commodities.. are you a commodity ?... if you get sucked into "free estimates" and "soliciting bids"... then you are a commodity... if your operation is set up to compete as a commodity, then have at it..... but be prepared to keep your margins low and your overhead high...."
From the best of TauntonU.
Digital camera, tapeless measurer, standard tape measure, graph paper, pencil.
For large additions and remodels I first try to get a plat of survey showing the footprint of the house. Then I come to the house with a 1/4" footprint drawn for each floor I need to measure. Then I can actually sketch out to scale everything that's vital to the project.
I also make it a point to measure three courses of brick, typical sidin exposure, top of foundation to sill, top of window, or soffit height. As much elevations typical feature dimensions as possible. The I can use all of that while I reference the digital photos. Hey, it's almost like "ARCHITECTURAL CSI".
It would be cool if there was software that made it easier by just imputting data feature dimensions and photos. But then you can use what the photo sees, not what's byond the photo. Sometimes you need the human element to do a thorough job.
Hey Joe have yo ever heard of or used this:http://www.quantapoint.com/
That is awesome!
Jim, watch the tutorials here, and then come back and comment. Not the same topic as here, exactly, but sort of close.
http://sketchup.google.com/gsu6vtviewer.html
Gene, I've looked at those tutorials several times. I'm in the process of trying that photo process out.
In my earlier days, I've taken polaroids and used them as estimators, but if memory serves me correctly, I went back for more precise measurements if I won the contract.
blue"...
keep looking for customers who want to hire YOU.. all the rest are looking for commodities.. are you a commodity ?... if you get sucked into "free estimates" and "soliciting bids"... then you are a commodity... if your operation is set up to compete as a commodity, then have at it..... but be prepared to keep your margins low and your overhead high...."
From the best of TauntonU.
"...Just have the homeowner take a digital picture and e-mail it to you...", they say.
Let me count the ways that doesn't work!
Most people take awful pictures.
zoom lense or wide angle; wider angle lenses compress distances in the outer 1/3 of the picture.
How do you get that magic 7.5" target to them, by e-mail?
To estimate a deck, what is the height to the lens?
house pictures; what angle of incidence? What distance from camera?
Havent seen it but not too skeptical. The software is out there, has been for some time, and is accurate. You find that ability as a byproduct in other graphics programs such as photoshop where you can take virtually any picture taken at any angle and set a couple of reference points and realign the axes to digitally make a straight on shot, from which point distances and dimensions can be taken.
Real trucks dont have sparkplugs
I have a friend who is adept at converting photographs into scale models using some form of perspective geometry. He builds the models out of paper very neat to watch. He does mostly houses from his childhood, old old photos.
The computer program will only give you info based on its programming so Id take a couple of measurements to reference off of. It can be done though.
AutoCad has a "scale-in" factor so you may include photo's into your plans. Never used it 'cause it's pricy.
We used to set aerial 3' square panels around a survey point, an aircaft would "fly" the course, and get "X,Y,Z" coordinates to within 0.10." They would use stereo vision overlay lenses to get the elevations, as long as we had elevations on the points. The cameras were large format 8"X10" if I remember correctly. GPS has now largely replaced this methodology except in "as builts."
As far as structure photography, you'd have to use a lens/camera that had no wide angle distortion that would "stretch" the image. As with anything else, you better measure a few areas to verify the accuracy.
I've scaled quite a few measurements from pictures, primarily furniture, but also remodeling projects that don't require exact measurements.
It's very easy to be within 5% and often it's half that. The better the picture is the better. Use a long lens, record at least one object towards the center of the pic to use for scale and snap it from the center of the area.
Some will scoff, but once the picture is up on the screen it's quite easy to use a dial caliper to record distances and convert to actual size.
Beer was created so carpenters wouldn't rule the world.
i use photos to measure all the time
take two base measurements of an elevation.. the width & the ht.
now back off and take the picture as close to right angles as you can
repeat for each elevation
now you can print out the photos and enlarge them to exact scale on a copy machine using your measurements
or.. in my case.. i import the pics into my Chief Architect, add a CAD line the same length as my measurements and enlarge the pic to match the CAD line
now everything in that view is to scale and you can measure off the printout or in the CAD program
just beware of lense distortion
another thing you can do with photos that have no measurements is ASSUME measurements to items like DOORS (3/0 x 6/8 )
or wall hts ( 8' first floor to ceiling ).. you can usually develop a good scale from those
BTW..... in all our remodeling , addition, and renovation work we use real photos of existing conditions in the plans we are designing....
Chief and the HP500 make this very easy... and it really helps sell the work
Edited 4/14/2007 8:53 am ET by MikeSmith
I take an angle picture and a few headon pictures and use sketch up. I will often just include a extended tape measure in a picture on a prominent feature so that I can rescale my model in sketch up accordingly. Then using photo match in sketch up it seems to work really well. I've only recently started using the photo match feature but scaling the model seems to work really well after you get used to the fundementals..
arthur