Photogrammetry tutorial 12: my workflow for Agisoft Metashape as a diagram

EDIT 06/2022: added chart for using depth map based mesh generation. Updated other charts to new program name.

The last tutorial on how to handle a project in Agisoft Metashape Pro describes all the steps I usually do in some detail. Here, I’ll show you a flow diagram, which gives a nice concise overview for those who do not need to read up on all the details or prefer to have an overview at hand in parallel to the long-winded description of all the things you need to click. It also shows which steps of the process you actually need to do yourself, which steps Metashape does, and which ones you can batch process easily.

Actually, there are THREE flowcharts, differing in a tiny detail at the very start and in the way your model is built (via dense cloud or directly from depth maps). Above, you see the diagram for a project with many images, only few of which show targets for auto-recognition. If you do as I say, these images will be at the beginning of your photo set. As the diagram suggests, I recommend loading only these images into Metashape Pro initially, so that the “Detect Markers” command can be applied only to them, and not the many other photos you shot. This approach can be quite a time saver! All the target-free photos are added to the same chunk only after marker detection has been completed.

Below, in contrast, is the diagram for cases where splitting the image set into target-bearing and non-target-bearing parts is not worth the effort.

Now, how do you read this flowchart?

On the left, you see boxes in BLUE. These are steps that require you to do something beyond simply starting a software command.
On the right, you see boxes in ORANGE. These are steps that refer to in-program commands in Photoscan you can simply start directly.

Lastly, if you choose to build your model directly from the depth maps, here is a version for that. Please note that, obviously, you can use both ways of marker detection shown above, but I am only giving you the chart for splitting the set for marker detection.