Best options for exporting mesh

[hax4dazy]

Trying to export a mesh from RTAB map that I made using a kinect and it always looks really bad. Any tips on what export settings I should be using? I don't want my exports to look like this which is what happened when I exported the mesh using the default settings.

Slight follow up question with that as well, is there any way to export the point cloud so it can be imported into realitycapture/reality scan? I was wondering if that would do a better job at piecing the point cloud together so it forms a better mesh.

[matlabbe]

Export settings

Your image looks like it is not textured, only colored polygons. If you mean "bad" for the geometry (mesh), we use the Poisson algorithm. The quality would depend on the noise of the point cloud and/or camera drifted during scanning. When exporting a mesh with Poisson, I disable voxel filter (set value to zero) to keep original normals on the points, that could help Poisson to better estimate the surface. If the point cloud has some noisy very far points, set the maximum range for the point cloud generation. The most important parameter is the Poisson's depth value. In general I start with 8, which is relatively fast and will smooth all surfaces (in particular if the point cloud is very noisy). You can then try 9 or 10 to get more geometric details, though at cost of more noise.

If you man "bad" for the color, you can enable texture mapping, that should make it slightly more visually appealing. For the best texturing, see multiband example (based on AliceVision library) in the link below.

See also

• https://github.com/introlab/rtabmap/wiki/Multi-Session-Mapping-with-RTAB-Map-Tango#7-export-the-mesh for an example of parameters.
• http://official-rtab-map-forum.206.s1.nabble.com/Best-Export-Settings-For-OBJ-tp10108p10110.html (similar question)

Export Raw Data

To export raw data and recompute the mesh and texture projection yourself, from rabmap-databaseViewer you may export as a point cloud (File->Export 3D Map), the image files (File->Export Images) and corresponding poses (File->Export poses).

We have also an old tutorial to export in Bundler format.