Autodesk Labs releases Project Memento

Autodesk Labs has released Project Memento, a free work-in-progress technology for visualising and editing the very large data sets generated by laser scanning or photogrammetry.

A simple way to clean up complex data
The demo video above shows a simple, semi-wizard-driven workflow for importing and cleaning up such data sets, with commands being accessed from a simple context-sensitive ring menu.

As well as enabling users to crop geometry and close or cap the resulting holes, the software includes a semi-automated workflow for identifying and fixing common errors such as gaps or spikes in the mesh surface.

Edited meshes may be decimated on export by anywhere from 1 to 99% by setting a simple slider control.

According to the Project Memento page on Autodesk Labs, the software supports ten levels of undo and redo, and can display geometry in wireframe, solid shader or textured views.

Works with the ReCap product line
The software is clearly tailored to work with Autodesk’s new ReCap product line for cleaning up and visualising scan and photogrammetry data, and supports its native RCM file format.

This article on Spar Point Group’s website has more detail about workflow between the packages, and on recent changes to the ReCap products.

However, Project Memento also imports and exports OBJ files, meaning that users of other software should get some mileage out of it, even if you will need some way of converting raw point cloud data to OBJ first.

Project Memento is currently available until 23 January 2014, for 64-bit versions of Windows 7 and 8.

Visit the Project Memento page on Autodesk Labs

Read the Project Memento starter guide

Download Project Memento
(Requires registration and completion of a user survey)