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Hi Everyone, 😊
I have just published 🚁 DroneSiteBuilder Enterprise v1.1 — a one-click drone-photo to 3D site assembly for 3ds Max, now with Google Photorealistic 3D Tiles support.
The traditional pipeline (Adobe Lightroom + Global Mapper + NOAA LiDAR + manual camera matching) takes 6–8 hours per site. DroneSiteBuilder does it in about 90 seconds.
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| DroneSiteBuilder dialog |
Drop a folder of drone photos in → click one button → walk away.
🆕 NEW in v1.2 — Google Photorealistic 3D Tiles
Tick one checkbox and the pipeline swaps the DEM + Esri + OSM stack for Google’s official photogrammetric mesh of the area — the same data Google Earth shows, imported straight into 3ds Max as a single georeferenced .glb covering the entire drone bbox.
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| Google Photorealistic 3D Tiles group |
•🌍 Terrain, textures and buildings all baked into one continuous photo-real mesh
•🎯 Drone helpers and matched cameras still placed identically on top
•🎚️ Detail slider — from near-Google-Earth quality to fast preview
•💸 Free up to 1,000 root-tileset requests/month with your own Google Maps API key
•🏙️ Also available in the standalone GeoBuild dialog for any address worldwide — no drone photos required If the fetch fails (low coverage, EEA billing, etc.) DroneSiteBuilder offers a one-click fallback to the standard DEM + Esri + OSM path for that run.
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| GeoBuild dialog |
•✅ Subdivided terrain + satellite drape (USGS 3DEP or OpenTopography, both free)
•✅ Extruded OSM buildings + road network sized by class
•✅ Full land-features layer: forest, parks, water, fences, 3D place-name labels, POI markers
•✅ NEW in v1.2 — Optional Google Photorealistic 3D Tiles mesh in place of the layered stack
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| Google Photorealistic 3D Tiles dialog |
•✅ One renderer-aware camera per photo — VRayPhysicalCamera / CoronaCam / Physical — positioned from XMP, oriented via vanishing-point detection
•✅ Automatic NOAA GEOID18 vertical-datum correction so cameras land at the right Z
A single .ms file, one activation, bundling DroneSiteBuilder (orchestrator), GeoBuild v1.3 (standalone-usable for any address worldwide, now with its own Google 3D Tiles path), and CameraMatch v6.1.8.
📂 Which photo files to drop in the folder
DroneSiteBuilder reads the XMP metadata embedded by the drone — latitude, longitude, altitude, calibrated focal length, IMU orientation. Without that metadata, there is nothing for the pipeline to work from.
✔️ Use these:
• Original DNG (RAW) files straight from the drone
• Original JPEG files straight from the drone
• Mixed DNG + JPEG in the same folder is fine
• Skydio, DJI, Autel, Parrot, or any drone embedding XMP orientation
• File names must end in digits — e.g. DJI_0759.JPG ✅, final_shot.JPG ❌
⛔ Do NOT use these — they strip the XMP metadata the pipeline depends on:
• PNG re-exports
•TIFF re-exports
• Photos exported from Lightroom / Photoshop without preserving XMP
• Screenshots, web downloads, or social-media saves of drone photos
• Files renamed without trailing photo numbers
Specs
•📌 3ds Max 2020+ on Windows. V-Ray, Corona, Arnold, Scanline, ART.
•📌 Reads XMP from Skydio, DJI, Autel, Parrot.
•📌 Python 3.9–3.12 with NumPy + OpenCV (plus optional trimesh + pygltflib for the Google 3D Tiles path).
•📌 Existing CameraMatch Studio licence keys activate the full DroneSiteBuilder bundle — Studio holders do not pay twice.
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| Original Drone photo |
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| DroneSiteBuilder used to camera match and create the 3d scene with one click |
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| DroneSiteBuilder used to fetch the terrain + textures + buildings + roads +etc |
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| Cameras created + matched +fetched terrain + textures + buildings + roads +etc |
Free Manual: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1nzKRn9-dGON3taoYN6UJYOTgKvTdjSrC?usp=sharing
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A personal, non-transferable licence for a single workstation. Low enough for an impulse purchase — high enough to reflect the tool's specialised computer-vision capabilities.
Single workstation — personal use
Full VP detection + horizon line + FBX export
Lifetime access to v6 updates
3ds Max + Blender + SketchUp editions
GeoBuild is a single-file 3ds Max toolkit that turns the slow, error-prone job of building a 3D map — projecting coordinates, sampling heights, extruding building footprints, sweeping road centrelines — into a few clicks: you give it a bounding box (or just type an address and let Nominatim resolve it), point it at local files (an OpenStreetMap .osm export, and optionally a grayscale heightmap and satellite image), and it assembles a geo-referenced scene with a terrain mesh, a self-illuminated satellite drape, height-aware extruded OSM buildings, and width-by-class road ribbons — all parented under a single root helper at the bbox centre, sharing the same real-world metric coordinate frame so the output drops cleanly into downstream workflows like CameraMatch.
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Small firms benefit most from efficiency gains. At this price the tool pays for itself in a single project by saving 15–20 hours of manual camera matching.
- Up to 5 named workstations
Lifetime access to v6 updates
- All platforms: 3ds Max + Blender + SketchUp editions
- Priority email support
- DroneSiteBuilder Enterprise. This is a single-file 3ds Max toolkit that compresses the traditional 6–8 hour drone-photo to 3D site pipeline (Lightroom + Global Mapper + NOAA LiDAR + manual camera matching) into about 90 seconds — one click, no exports, nothing leaves 3ds Max.
- Optional Rural / Landscape checkbox. This function ignores foliage and sky before detection and focuses on structural elements (tree trunks, road edges, kerbs, buildings). Corrects small detection errors that would otherwise tilt the horizon line on level shots.
- New Force level horizon (always zero roll) checkbox, independent of Landscape mode. Unconditionally snaps the camera's roll to zero regardless of the detected value. Pitch is left untouched, giving a flat-horizon starting point from which manual refinement is straightforward.
- GeoBuild is a single-file 3ds Max toolkit that turns the slow, error-prone job of building a 3D map — projecting coordinates, sampling heights, extruding building footprints, sweeping road centrelines — into a few clicks: you give it a bounding box (or just type an address and let Nominatim resolve it), point it at local files (an OpenStreetMap .osm export, and optionally a grayscale heightmap and satellite image), and it assembles a geo-referenced scene with a terrain mesh, a self-illuminated satellite drape, height-aware extruded OSM buildings, and width-by-class road ribbons — all parented under a single root helper at the bbox centre, sharing the same real-world metric coordinate frame so the output drops cleanly into downstream workflows like CameraMatch.
- On first launch the tool auto-registers under category JamieC. One-time drag from Customize > Customize User Interface > Toolbars places CameraMatch on any toolbar permanently.
- Compact default height that fits the main workflow on standard displays. Scrollbar and manual resize both preserved.
- User-configurable threshold (default 0.40). Below threshold the tool offers Apply anyway, Open Perspective Match, or Cancel — no silent commits on shaky detections.
- Precise build number v6.1.8 shown in the panel title, the header, and the Done dialog. Studios can reference the exact build in support tickets and change-management records.
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For large firms handling dozens of Photomontages and/or Verified Views for planning applications. Value is in standardisation, compliance, and multi-platform Access across the entire office.
Unlimited seats — site-wide deployment
Priority support + Q&A access
One Year of proprietary development of numerous 3d tools/Scripts tailored to your specific needs
DroneSiteBuilder Enterprise. This is a single-file 3ds Max toolkit that compresses the traditional 6–8 hour drone-photo to 3D site pipeline (Lightroom + Global Mapper + NOAA LiDAR + manual camera matching) into about 90 seconds — one click, no exports, nothing leaves 3ds Max.
Includes additional Verified Views 2025 CSV-automation tool
3ds Max and Blender + SketchUp editions (Maya edition to be added later )
Full audit trail for GLVIA3 planning submissions
Optional Rural / Landscape checkbox. Ignores foliage and sky before detection and focuses on structural elements (tree trunks, road edges, kerbs, buildings). Corrects small detection errors that would otherwise tilt the horizon line on level shots.
New Force level horizon (always zero roll) checkbox, independent of Landscape mode. Unconditionally snaps the camera's roll to zero regardless of the detected value. Pitch is left untouched, giving a flat-horizon starting point from which manual refinement is straightforward.
On first launch the tool auto-registers under category JamieC. One-time drag from Customize > Customize User Interface > Toolbars places CameraMatch on any toolbar permanently.
Compact default height that fits the main workflow on standard displays. Scrollbar and manual resize both preserved.
User-configurable threshold (default 0.40). Below threshold the tool offers Apply anyway, Open Perspective Match, or Cancel — no silent commits on shaky detections.
Precise build number v6.1.8 shown in the panel title, the header, and the Done dialog. Studios can reference the exact build in support tickets and change-management records.
GeoBuild is a single-file 3ds Max toolkit that turns the slow, error-prone job of building a 3D map — projecting coordinates, sampling heights, extruding building footprints, sweeping road centrelines — into a few clicks: you give it a bounding box (or just type an address and let Nominatim resolve it), point it at local files (an OpenStreetMap .osm export, and optionally a grayscale heightmap and satellite image), and it assembles a geo-referenced scene with a terrain mesh, a self-illuminated satellite drape, height-aware extruded OSM buildings, and width-by-class road ribbons — all parented under a single root helper at the bbox centre, sharing the same real-world metric coordinate frame so the output drops cleanly into downstream workflows like CameraMatch.
