alicevision/meshroom

★ 12,728QMLAudience · designerComplexity · 4/5LicenseSetup · hard

Mindmap

mindmap
  root((meshroom))
    What It Does
      Photos to 3D mesh
      Photogrammetry
      Novel view rendering
    Tech Stack
      AliceVision core
      QML node editor
      GPU compute
    Use Cases
      3D scan objects
      HDR panoramas
      Camera tracking
      Geo-located scans
    Audience
      3D artists
      VFX artists
      Researchers
    Deployment
      Local machine
      Render farm

mindmap root((meshroom)) What It Does Photos to 3D mesh Photogrammetry Novel view rendering Tech Stack AliceVision core QML node editor GPU compute Use Cases 3D scan objects HDR panoramas Camera tracking Geo-located scans Audience 3D artists VFX artists Researchers Deployment Local machine Render farm

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Things people build with this

USE CASE 1

Photograph a physical object from all angles and reconstruct it as a 3D mesh for 3D printing or game asset creation.

USE CASE 2

Generate HDR panoramas from multiple exposures taken with a motorized camera rig using the built-in pipeline.

USE CASE 3

Track camera motion through a scene for use in visual effects compositing or augmented reality.

USE CASE 4

Place a real-world 3D scan in geographic coordinates using the geolocation plugin that pulls in map and elevation data.

Tech stack

QMLPythonC++AliceVisionCUDA

Getting it running

Difficulty · hard Time to first run · 1h+

Requires a GPU for practical performance, distributed rendering needs additional render farm configuration.

You can use and modify the code freely, but any changes to individual files must be shared under the same Mozilla Public License.

In plain English

Meshroom is an open-source desktop application for turning collections of photographs into 3D models. You take many photos of an object or location from different angles, load them into Meshroom, and the software figures out where each camera was positioned and reconstructs the geometry of the scene as a three-dimensional mesh. This process is called photogrammetry. The interface uses a node-based visual layout, sometimes called a visual programming or pipeline approach. Instead of a single button that does everything, you see a graph of connected boxes where each box represents one step in the process. You can see exactly what is happening at each stage, inspect intermediate results, swap out individual steps, and resume a partially completed job without restarting from scratch. When you change a setting on one node, only the nodes that depend on it are marked for recomputation. Cached results from unchanged steps are reused. The main 3D reconstruction capability comes from a bundled plugin called AliceVision, which was developed through collaboration between academic researchers and industry. Beyond basic reconstruction from photos, AliceVision includes pipelines for camera motion tracking, combining multiple exposures into HDR images, stitching panoramas including fisheye and motorized camera rigs, and photometric stereo which reconstructs fine surface details by varying the lighting direction. Several additional plugins are available separately. One uses AI models to identify and isolate objects in images using text descriptions. Another estimates depth from a single photo using machine learning. A third creates a type of 3D representation called Gaussian splatting, which is a newer method for rendering scenes from novel viewpoints. There is also a geolocation plugin that pulls in map and elevation data to place a reconstruction in real-world coordinates. Meshroom can run its pipeline locally on one machine or distribute the work across a render farm with multiple machines. Pre-compiled binaries are available for download, and the project is released under the Mozilla Public License version 2.

Copy-paste prompts

Prompt 1

I have 60 photos of a ceramic vase taken from all angles. Walk me through loading them into Meshroom and exporting a textured 3D mesh I can open in Blender.

Prompt 2

What Meshroom node settings should I adjust to improve mesh quality for a small shiny object with a uniform surface?

Prompt 3

How do I set up Meshroom to distribute a large photogrammetry job across multiple machines on a render farm?

Prompt 4

I want to use the Meshroom Gaussian splatting plugin to render my reconstruction from novel viewpoints. How do I enable and configure it?

Prompt 5

How does the AliceVision photometric stereo pipeline work in Meshroom and when should I use it instead of standard photogrammetry?

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