Best Metashape Settings for High-Precision 3D Reconstructions
News

Best Metashape Settings for High-Precision 3D Reconstructions

Posted on by admin

Agisoft Metashape is a powerful photogrammetry software trusted by professionals across industries like surveying, construction, archaeology, and visual effects. But to unlock its full potential, it’s crucial to understand which settings deliver the best results for high-precision 3D reconstructions. In this article, we’ll walk through the most important parameters for aligning photos, building dense clouds, generating meshes, and producing highly accurate 3D models.

Why Metashape Settings Matter

Photogrammetry isn’t just about clicking “process.” Every stage in Metashape’s workflow offers choices that affect speed, quality, and accuracy. Default settings can yield decent models, but for demanding professional use cases—like cadastral mapping or conservation—you need to fine-tune the parameters.

Photo Alignment Settings

The first step in any Metashape workflow is Align Photos. This generates camera positions and a sparse point cloud.

  • Accuracy: Use High for most cases. Highest offers more detail but requires significantly more processing time.
  • Key point limit: Default is 40,000. You can increase this to 60,000 or 80,000 for complex scenes, but watch memory usage.
  • Tie point limit: 4,000–10,000 is usually optimal. Increase to 20,000 if alignment fails.
  • Preselection: Enable both Generic and Reference if GPS data is embedded in photos.
  • Adaptive camera model fitting: Keep this enabled for better internal camera calibration, especially with varied focal lengths.

Optimize Camera Alignment

After photo alignment, go to Tools > Optimize Cameras. This improves the internal and external orientation of your camera system. Always enable the following parameters:

  • f, cx, cy – internal camera calibration
  • b1, b2, k1, k2, k3 – lens distortion parameters
  • p1, p2 – tangential distortion

Remove outliers before optimizing by using Gradual Selection on the sparse cloud (Reprojection Error < 1.0 px is recommended).

Build Dense Cloud: Settings for Accuracy

The dense point cloud is the foundation of any 3D model. Accurate cloud generation is essential for precise measurements and model geometry.

  • Quality: High balances detail and performance. Use Ultra High only on small datasets or with powerful GPUs.
  • Depth filtering: Use Mild or Moderate to preserve edges. Aggressive may remove fine features.
  • Calculate point confidence: Enable this if you plan to filter out noisy points later.

Tip: Dense cloud generation is GPU-intensive. Use a supported NVIDIA card with CUDA for best performance.

Build Mesh: Settings for Precision Surfaces

Once the dense cloud is ready, it’s time to generate a 3D mesh. Here are the best settings for professional-grade models:

  • Source data: Use Dense Cloud for detail. Depth Maps can be more accurate in structured environments but requires good photo alignment.
  • Surface type: Arbitrary for general 3D models. Height field for terrain or orthophoto generation.
  • Face count: Set to High or specify a custom polygon count depending on your export needs (e.g., 1M–5M).

Texture Generation: Visual Clarity & Detail

Textures give your mesh visual clarity and realism. Use these settings:

  • Mapping mode: Generic for irregular shapes, Orthophoto for buildings or planar surfaces.
  • Blending mode: Mosaic creates seamless textures. Average is faster but lower quality.
  • Texture size: Use 4096×4096 or higher if you plan to zoom in or print the models.

For GIS applications, don’t forget to embed projection and georeferencing data when exporting the textured model.

Coordinate Systems and Scaling

If you’re working on geospatially accurate projects (e.g., land surveys), it’s vital to define a coordinate system early on:

  • Load GCPs (Ground Control Points) before alignment
  • Set the correct EPSG code (e.g., 32633 for WGS 84 / UTM zone 33N)
  • Enable Reference Settings under the Tools > Reference tab

This ensures proper scaling and geolocation throughout the workflow.

Export Settings

For professional delivery, Metashape allows export in multiple formats:

  • Mesh: OBJ, FBX, STL, 3DS
  • Point Cloud: LAS, LAZ, PLY
  • Orthophotos: TIFF with world files (.tfw)

Always check texture resolution and coordinate reference during export to maintain precision.

Advanced Tip: Use Chunk Duplication for Comparison

To test different settings without losing your progress, duplicate your chunk and run alternate processing pipelines. This is especially useful for comparing dense cloud quality or mesh detail based on resolution settings.

Conclusion

Mastering Agisoft Metashape’s settings is essential for producing high-precision 3D reconstructions. From optimizing photo alignment to generating detailed textures, each stage in the workflow can be adjusted to improve accuracy, clarity, and performance. Whether you’re modeling a historical monument, surveying terrain, or creating digital twins, these best practices will ensure you get the most out of Metashape.

Stay tuned for more advanced guides on scripting, automation, and batch processing in Metashape. Happy modeling!