Reconstruction by low cost software based on photogrammetry as a reverse engineering process

© Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature 2018. Among the various types of scanning that can be found on the market to perform a three-dimensional reconstruction, an alternative is highlighted due to its low cost and its ease of use, making it suitable for a great amount of applications. This is Image-based 3D Modeling and Rendering (IB3DMR), in which it is possible to generate a three-dimensional model from a set of 2D photographs. Among the existing commercial applications based on the IB3DMR, this communication has selected the Autodesk ReCap software, which is free and provides great features in terms of simplicity of operation, automation of the reconstruction process and possibility of exporting to other more complex applications. The use of this type of technologies based on photogrammetry is an alternative to the conventional reverse engineering processes, so a study with seven different pieces in terms of colour, geometry and texture has been performed for its assessment, obtaining three-dimensional reconstructions with very satisfactory results.