pixelmap-multiview-python

Turn a set of ordinary photos of a scene into a textured 3D model.

Python bindings for the pixelmap_multiview Rust crate. It maps every pair of three or more photos with pixelmap's dense correspondence, works out where each photo was taken from, and fuses all of the views into one mesh. You don't need calibration, markers or measurements.

These 23 phone photos were taken while walking once around a statue:

The mesh fused from them, shown untextured in MeshLab from three sides:

Install

pip install pixelmap-multiview-python            # the library; NumPy is the only dependency
pip install "pixelmap-multiview-python[images]"  # plus Pillow, for load_photos()

The distribution is pixelmap-multiview-python, and the import name is pixelmap_multiview. Wheels are published for Linux (x86-64, aarch64, musl), macOS (Apple silicon and Intel) and Windows (x86-64), for CPython 3.9 and newer. You only need a Rust toolchain to build from source.

Quick start

import pixelmap_multiview as pmv

photos, focal = pmv.load_photos(["a.jpg", "b.jpg", "c.jpg", "d.jpg"])
model = pmv.reconstruct(photos, quality="medium", focal_35mm=focal)

print(model)  # <pixelmap_multiview.Model 23314 vertices, 45708 triangles, 4 of 4 photos>
model.save("out/statue.obj")  # + statue.mtl + statue_texture.png, for MeshLab or Blender

load_photos turns each photo upright according to its EXIF orientation and scales it to 1200 px on the long side. It also returns the 35 mm-equivalent focal length from EXIF when every photo records the same one. Photos from anywhere else work too: pass a list of uint8 arrays (H, W, 3), (H, W, 4) or (H, W), or Pillow images, all the same size.

What you get

All of these are in one frame. The first camera of the best pair sits at the origin looking along +z with +y down the image, and the distance between that pair's cameras is the unit of length. Nothing is metric. model.save() writes .obj (textured), .x3d (textured) or .ply (vertex colours), turned half a revolution about x so that viewers show the model upright.

Following along and stopping

A run takes minutes of work. on_event hears about all of it, as data rather than prose:

def on_event(event):
    if event.progress is not None:  # None for log lines and dropped photos
        print(f"{event.progress:5.1%}  {event.message}")
    if isinstance(event, pmv.PairMapped):
        event.points  # (rows, cols, 2): the dense correspondence for this pair, NaN where unmapped


model = pmv.reconstruct(photos, on_event=on_event)

The events are Started, StageProgress, PairProgress, PairMapped, PairRejected, ViewDropped and Log. Each one carries stage, progress and message, along with its own fields. If on_event raises an exception, the run stops at the next checkpoint and the exception propagates. Ctrl-C stops a run the same way.

To keep your own thread free, run the reconstruction as a Job:

job = pmv.Job(photos, quality="medium")
for event in job:  # each event as it happens; ends when the run does
    print(f"{job.status.progress:.0%} {event.message}")
model = job.join()

For code with its own event loop, job.next_event(timeout=0) polls without waiting, and job.status works from any thread. After job.cancel(), join() raises CancelledError, well within a second.

When a capture fails

A run that can't produce a correct model raises an exception rather than returning a plausible-looking wrong one. Each exception names the stage that failed and says what to change:

try:
    model = pmv.reconstruct(photos)
except pmv.ReconstructionError as err:
    print(err.stage, err.reason)  # tracks too_few_tracks
    # only 338 points could be followed across three or more photos (need 500);
    # the photos share too little of the scene
    print(err)

InvalidInputError (also a ValueError) covers too few photos, photos of different sizes, and photos that are too small. ReconstructionError covers captures that can't be reconstructed: a camera that only turned, a flat scene, or photos with too little in common. Match on err.reason rather than on the message. The failure's details are attributes, such as err.found and err.required.

For a good capture:

• Step sideways between shots rather than turning on the spot.
• Let neighbouring photos overlap generously.
• Keep one camera at one zoom setting throughout.

Cost

Mapping the pairs dominates: N photos take N(N−1)/2 pixelmap runs. One pair of 4:3 photos, native build:

Input size barely changes the matching time, because pixelmap scales every photo to a fixed working width first. What a larger input buys is precision in the geometry that follows. Runs are deterministic: the same photos, quality and seed give the same model.

Development

python -m venv .venv && . .venv/bin/activate
pip install maturin pytest pillow ruff numpy
maturin develop --release   # release matters: the tests run whole reconstructions
pytest

License

MIT