Using 123D Catch, 123D Make and Meshmixer to construct my 3D model.

123D Catch:

 I found this particular plant at the Camellia Park nursery, during a visit there with my father earlier this week. It attracted my attention because of not only the fact that it was a prime example of a spiral topiary but that it was different from others i had seen and a little bit irregular in its form. I like the fact that it isn't a perfect spiral. The actual plant itself was in a smaller plastic pot, but i was able to borrow a larger terracotta pot to place it within for my photography.

With the permission of the Nursery staff, I first placed the spiral topiary in an open location with the strongest consistency of lighting that i could find. Then using the 123D Catch app on my phone i took 24 photos around the object at to varying heights, as instructed by the program. Unforunatley due to the time of day were were at the Nursery some afternoon sun did impede the images and this was later evident within the glitches throughout 3D renders that the program produced. Luckily these errors were only minor and the virtual model could still be used.

After 123D Catch had generated a 3D model of the Spiral Topiary, I used the Lasso selection tool to edit out the background and all the unwanted parts of the 3D Image. I attempted to give it the simplest form possible, so that 123D Make would have an easier time processing the model.

The two lasso selection tools are positioned on the right of the camera icon in the above menu bar

This image is a screenshot of my spiral topiary model made in  the 123D Catch program

Meshmixer:

I then save the file as an 'stl' and exported it into Meshmixer where i was then able to edit out some of the glitches with the photographing and modelling process and simplify the topiary's texture, colour and form. This was the first time i had used this program, so it took some adjusting for it to run relatively smoothly.

    

From this stage i saved and exported the file as an OBJ so that the next stage could be completed in 123D Make.