(Note: This is a pre-release article. More details and Images will be added within the next days)
This is a short overview of some amazing new features of the Meshroom 2025.1 Release.
It is a huge release with 330 implemented changes in Meshroom and 253 in AliceVision.
You will be able to read the full release notes (here AliceVision) and (here Meshroom)
There are many User Interface updates throughout Meshroom.
Some features are not yet fully refined, so feel free to create a Feature Request (New Issue).
UI updates and changes
When you start the new release, you will notice the new project page:
From here you will be able to start Meshroom with your preferred Pipeline template or open existing Projects.
You can choose from 24 different Pipeline Templates, start from scratch or upgrade an existing project.
The main Meshroom application will look familiar to you, but there are noticeable changes.
The menu has more entries, allowing to manage projects and templates, clearing images or starting/stopping the graph computation. You still have the option to start/stop the graph computation with a single button, but it is less prominent than before in the upper middle of the screen.
The Image Viewer now has a sequence player, which is useful for preview.
The 3D Viewer now has a light controller, which can be used to change lightning in the 3D scene.
You will also notice a new tab next to the Graph Editor and Task Manager called "Script Editor".
It is part of the new Plugin System.
The new Plugin System [experimental]
A reason, why this release took this much time, was the internal restructuring of Meshroom to make it a more versatile
node-based visual programming toolbox that allows to easily implement custom nodes.
This required some untangling of Meshroom and AliceVision.
Meshroom is still bundled with AliceVision, but it is now easier than ever to add your own nodes or support for custom code/AI/ML models and software.
Note: Currently you will need a Developer Version of Meshroom to test the new Plugins on Meshroom Hub.
Future releases will improve Plugin handling for users and the idea is to be able to add Plugins as needed to Meshroom to build the ideal tool for your workflow.
It is not possible to bundle all features that are available as Plugins in the main Meshroom release due to the many dependencies and file size.
With the Plugin system you will be able to only install the functionality you need.
Meshroom Hub already has many amazing Plugins, such as for Gaussian Splatting, monocular depth estimation, optical flow and more to come...
The new AI generated documentation will be of huge help https://deepwiki.com/alicevision/Meshroom to easily create your own nodes for Meshroom.
Photogrammetry
First tests showed that the computation time of the default pipeline did not change much. It can be compared to the 2023 release.
However the quality of the reconstruction improved, especially if you use the new segmentation node to generate masks.
Object Reconstruction & Segmentation
It is now possible to perform targeted reconstruction with automatic object segmentation.
The ImageDetectionPrompt and ImageSegmentationBox nodes generate bounded boxes corresponding to the input text prompt.
The Segment Anything model is used to generate a binary mask. This will vastly improve the results of turntable reconstructions or object reconstruction that requires merging two sides.
The segmentation model is bundled with Meshroom and allows for convenient mask generation and you have the option to choose between cpu and gpu.
There are three modes:
- Object Reconstruction: New ImageDetectionPrompt and ImageSegmentationBox nodes are added to the default pipeline, parallel to
- Object Reconstruction Turn Table: ImageDetectionPrompt and ImageSegmentationBox are inserted into the default photogrammetry pipeline prior FeatureExtraction.
- Object Reconstruction Two Sides: A more complex pipeline having two Object Reconstruction pipelines, one for each side and a step to merge both.
RTI and Multiview Photometric Stereo
The capabilities of Meshroom for Reflectance Transformation Imaging (RTI) has been improved by adding an interactive visualization of albedo and normal maps with real-time lighting control to the Viewer. What is unique is the new MultiView Photometric Stereo pipeline that allows to reconstruct advanced surface detail with multiple light sources for each viewpoint.
You will need a ScanRig or a LightDome (TBA) to fully utilize this capability.
There currently is no other free open source software solutions with ready to use Multiview Photometric Stereo capability on the market.
Point cloud and LIDAR
There is first experimental support for point clouds and (E57, pc.ply) and meshing capabilities, allowing to add Lidar Scans to the mix.
Blender preview
The ScenePreview node uses Blender to visualize a 3D model from a given set of cameras. The cameras must be a SfMData file in JSON format. For the 3D model it supports both point clouds in Alembic format and meshes in OBJ format. One frame per viewpoint will be rendered, and the undistorted views can optionally be used as background.
Survey point injection
Inject survey points (3D world coordinates + 2D coordinates in a given frame) using a json file generated from 3D equalizer. Add survey points to sfmData and use survey points to constraint the pose estimation in the bundle adjustement.
...more to come