Autodesk Remake is a simple software to start with photogammetry or 3D scan objects/persons, of all sizes, from a set of pictures that you can take with a DSLR, a point-and-shoot camera or your mobile phone. The Remake software will upload the pictures to the Autodesk cloud system, compute the data in your pictures, render the objects that it finds in the array of pictures you have provided, and allow you to download it through its software which is run only on Windows and Mac. Since the software is using the Autodesk Cloud system, you need to create a free account at Autodesk.com which give you a space of 5Gb, plenty enough to create about 30 scans without deleting any of them from your cloud account.
When you open the software you are welcome with that window:
On the right top corner where you see the name of your user or a Sign In option.
Make sure that your are signed in before going further.
From the Top Left, select the big blue button:
This will make a window popup in the middle of the screen, with 2 options, but only one available in the free version – so you choose the option: Online – button on the right side.
Then the windows disappear and a new one popup in its place. Here you are asked to locate where the pictures are.
- Option on the left: Local Drive: The picture do not take space in your 5Gb free space
- Option on the right: A360 Drive:You would have to upload the picture there manually prior running the Remake software
For my part I use the Local Drive option, as it is more convenient, as Autodesk do not have so far a software like the Dropbox, Yandesk Disk that do an automatic mirror the content of a directory on your PC and your cloud drive.
Once you click, you will be taken to your drive where you will need to select all the pictures, 50 at maximum, to be included in to the computation of the 3D model.
The software will switch back to itself and start showing the pictures that you have selected
Click the blue button at the bottom: Create model
A window will popup in the middle of the screen for you to specify the name of the project
There are limitations in the name you can enter:
- No accentuated characters,
- No non-Latin (Chinese, Japanese, …) characters,
- No space
You can leave the other options as default
Then the process will start by uploading your pictures to the Autodesk cloud. You will be able to follow the uploading process at the bottom of the screen. Note that the picture uploaded this way will not take any space from your free 5Gb.
Then the project will be on hold until there is time available on the Autodesk Cloud CPU to run your project
When your project arrive at the front of the job queue the process will start, and the percentage of completion will be shown at the bottom of the screen.
Once your project is completed, you will be shown the option to download your project to your computer
You download your project to your computer and then you can work on it. Once this is done, usually delete the project from my Autodesk Cloud since there is nothing you can do more on this project on the cloud. The file extension is not recognize by any other software from Autodesk. The file is best kept on your PC.
The downloaded project will be found on the middle part of the screen next to the Space Mouse sample. You click on it and then you are taken to the edit function where you will clean up the rendering, fix holes, etc…
Most probably like in the picture below, you will find some pieces of the background that have been rendered, you can clean it up and just keep your object that should be there in the middle.
And you end up with a finish product – almost ready for 3D printing!
