Update on AI 3D for Masterton airport

[toprob]

I hope to revisit Hood Aerodrome shortly, tomorrow is looking promising. In the meantime, I'm very much aware that the photos I have are getting on for five years old, which is a long time in airfield years. So I haven't gone mad with modelling, just the aeroclub building and a couple of hangars, plus some AI-derived models of top-dressing loaders.
And a barbeque.
The barbie is behind the aeroclub, along with a dilapidated shed and a swimming pool. The barbie was an ideal candidate for AI, although it did take a few goes to get it looking like the real thing. The shed, however, was a bit much for AI, as it had a few features which made it tricky -- first, it's overhung by a row of trees, which hide much of it, and it has an open woodshed in the front. (Latest Google Earth imagery shows that these trees and gone now, with my luck by the time I get there the shed will be gone as well.)


I gave Tripo left/right/front photos, but it couldn't decide what was solid and what wasn't. So I got some help from Google Gemini. I gave it this photo and asked it to give me a three-quarter view suitable for AI 3D use.


It gave me this, almost, it did clip the bottom off so I popped it into PhotoShop and used Generative Expand (more AI) to complete the missing corner.


Putting this into Tripo gave an ok result:


I like the bent iron on the roof and front, that sort of 'organic' look is why I considered this shed an ideal AI candidate, as it's tricky to model all that bent iron just using Blender. But it still had trouble with the inside view, and didn't even think of putting corrugated iron on the back and far side, so I gave up and tried the old-fashioned way. However I was impressed by Gemini's work on the roof panels in the image above, giving a very nice image of something which was barely shown in my photos, so I asked Gemini to make me a texture just of the roof. I gave it the front-on photo shown above, and it gave me this:


Now that's impressive, and I've used that in a normal texture sheet. This is the not-quite-finished model.


There is in fact a bit of AI 3D, there's a layer of kindling and bits and pieces of wood for the barbie in the shed, which gives a bit more realism up close, and doesn't add too many vertices. For this, I gave Gemini a photo I took looking in the shed, and asked it to create a nice clear image for the AI tool. A bit convoluted, but it's good to know what works and what doesn't.

[Charl]

OMG

[cowpatz]

Now that is very clever use of AI. It would take hours in blender I'd imagine. Creating textures is a great idea. How do you create the correct scale from what AI produces?

[Splitpin]

Rob, you never cease to amaze me

[toprob]

How do you create the correct scale from what AI produces?

Tripo doesn't even attempt to get the scale right, everything imports into Blender pretty small, but it's easy to get the proper size from Google Earth and scale it up in Blender. After all, it is just one big mesh. The cars I made just need a quick search for specs for the length.

Nice trip to Masterton today, the Wairarapa is beautiful at this time of year. Not many useful pics, as the sun was low and bright, so shadows everywhere. But the main goal was to see what's new, turns out not much. At least now I know I'm probably not wasting my time modelling from my almost-four-year-old photos.

Luckily the woodshed is still there, although a lot more dilapidated. I was surprised to see that I'd placed the it the wrong way around in the sim, but an easy fix. Funny how your mind can play tricks once you get to 70...