COLMAP is a general-purpose, end-to-end 3D reconstruction system for 3D scene reconstruction from multiple images. It is a robust open-source software package for 3D reconstruction that is designed to work with both unstructured and structured input. It is capable of producing dense point clouds, surface meshes, texture meshes, and camera models.
COLMAP is used by both professionals and hobbyists alike and is the go-to software for 3D reconstruction.
COLMAP provides a highly optimized and automated workflow for 3D reconstruction from images.
Features:
1. Multi-View Stereo (MVS): COLMAP includes a fully-featured implementation of Multi-View Stereo (MVS) which allows for the reconstruction of 3D scenes from multiple images.
2. Automatic Image Matching: COLMAP includes a feature-based image matching algorithm which can find a set of correspondences between two images.
3. Sparse Reconstruction: COLMAP can reconstruct a sparse 3D model from a set of images by triangulating the feature correspondences.
4. Dense Reconstruction: COLMAP can reconstruct a dense 3D model from a set of images by fusing the sparse 3D model with a set of depth maps generated from the images.
5. Mesh Reconstruction: COLMAP can generate a surface mesh from the dense 3D model.
6. Texture Mesh Reconstruction: COLMAP can generate a texture mesh from the dense 3D model.
7. Camera Model Generation: COLMAP can generate a camera model from a set of images.
8. Photometric Calibration: COLMAP can generate a photometric calibration from a set of images.
9. Image Warping: COLMAP can warp a set of images to a common coordinate system.
10. Visualization: COLMAP can visualize the reconstructed 3D models and camera models.
11. Optimization: COLMAP includes an optimization framework which can optimize the 3D models and camera models to improve the reconstruction results.
12. Scripting: COLMAP includes a scripting framework which can be used to automate the reconstruction process.
13. Multi-Threading: COLMAP can utilize multiple CPU cores to speed up the reconstruction process.
14. Cross-Platform: COLMAP is available for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux operating systems.