Match Photo / Advanced Camera Tools
Collection of assorted stuff...
Bit of SketchUp History
2 & 3 point perspective matching This discussion from December 2004 covers some of the geometry behind Photo Match -- from SketchUp 4, before the Photo Match tool was created for SketchUp. Includes a download with example geometry.
pasting sketch up model into a real photo | Overlaying 3D models over photographs Method of using Vitrite, a program (Windows), to make a transparent window overlay to orient a SketchUp model onto a graphic image. (This pre-dates SketchUp's watermark style and photogrammetric techniques detailed below.)
Trimble Some big things happen when a 3D modeling app is acquired by a professional, GPS driven, precision measuring corporation. You come a long way baby...
Tutorials
Program and SketchUp Plugins
PTLens Program that corrects lens pincushion/barrel distortion, vignetting, chromatic aberration, and perspective. Good to correct images for SketchUp Photo Match. - Windows, Mac
PlaceMaker - Instant 3D city builder SketchUp extension. Fee - Windows, Mac
Photogrammetry +
General, introductory instructions for Match Photo and Advanced Camera Tools (Google Doc manual) - a SketchUp Pro extension from the SketchUp team - do not cover all possible uses of these two powerful tools, like when you need to match a SketchUp model to an existing image for a presentation.
Advanced Camera Tools can be used for more things than setting up scenes for the film and television industry. Advanced Camera Tools can be used for Photogrammetry - the term used to measure physical space from photographs. In situations where it is important to know the physical camera location, the Advanced Camera Tools extension now makes it possible to determine camera location from a digital image.
If one needs to be very accurate with recreating physical space from images, it is possible.
Joshua Cohen of Fat Pencil Studio presented his company's photogrammetry process using both Match Photo and Advanced Camera Tools (ACT) to recreate a time-stamped accident scene during SketchUp Basecamp 2014 showcasing his SketchUp photogrammetry work to help get an out-of-court settlement for a horrible bus accident TriMet Case Settles. Fat Pencil Studio YouTube home with more examples.
Blind Spot is another case study done by Fat Pencil two years after the TriMet case, and again using photogrammetry in SketchUp..
Photogrammetry Tutorial recreated from Joshua's Basecamp 2014 presentation. The animation shows the use of the Watermark feature to both help align the model to the image and the level of accuracy that can be achieved in locating a camera position from a digital image.
The 2014 SketchUp Basecamp Photogrammetry Workshop files to examine: ford building.zip and football field.zip. Note: The football field example has fewer reference lines in the image and relies more on setting the scene with Advanced Camera Tools. This approach will appeal to those modelers without detailed camera settings information and who want to just wing it.