Kiri Engine’s Free 4.0 Update Gives You Unlimited Photogrammetry Exports
Kiri Innovations has released a jam-packed update to its popular 3D scanning app, which brings expanded and improved functionality to all users, free and paid.
Kiri Engine is a versatile scanning app that brings together various forms of mobile-friendly scanning processes including photogrammetry, 3D gaussian splatting, and Lidar all under one roof. It’s the one app that convinced me that photogrammetry on Android didn’t suck anymore. Alternative apps now exist, but I’m always a little excited to see when Kiri Engine gets an update.
There are five key things that impact photogrammetry in the app with the new update, most significantly, improved processing times, which are now up to five times faster claims an official blog post detailing the update. Kiri Engine doesn’t strictly rely on your smartphone’s processing power to process the photos into scans, with everything whizzing off through the cloud to Kiri Engine’s servers. This typically means some waiting is involved while the model is processed, but now that waiting time is shorter.
As well as being faster, the app now handles smooth and featureless objects better, outputting scans with higher fidelity and less of the bumpy, random “features” that would appear where there are none. This one improvement effectively increases surface quality across the board.
Photo limits have been increased, too. Previously, free users of Kiri Engine could only upload 100 photographs per scan but that limit has stepped up to 150 photographs. For paying “Pro” users, the limit steps from 300 to 500. A good model output from photogrammetry requires up close shots and coverage from all angles – more photos means more possible detail in your model.
An AR visualization mode has also been added to assist you when capturing photographs for photogrammetry. As you sweep around the subject, you’ll be able to see where you have and have not been, helping you to avoid lapses in coverage and ensure a thorough scan before you send it off to the cloud to process.
Possibly the best aspect of the update to V4.0 is Kiri Engine removing export limits in the “photo scan” photogrammetry mode. Free plan users were previously limited to three exports per week (which could be topped up by performing actions in the app or purchasing credits). No more. Export as much as you want.
Stepping away from photogrammetry, Kiri Engine’s handling of physically based rendering textures (PBRs) has been updated. The app’s new use of a diffusion model, not dissimilar to AI image generation tools, means that Kiri Engine can now capture significantly improved PBR sets, leading to more true to life textures and less mess than before. In the context of 3D printing, this is a pretty irrelevant feature, but for 3D animation, visualization, and AR or VR design, this appears to be a leap forwards for mobile app-based scanning.
A final quality of life improvement sees the ability to toggle between high res and low res previews of models in the mobile app. Previously, you could only view a low res preview in-app.
Available on Android, iOS, and via webapp, Kiri Engine 4.0 is available to download now.
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License: The text of "Kiri Engine’s Free 4.0 Update Gives You Unlimited Photogrammetry Exports" by All3DP is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.