Megalodon Tooth Photogrammetry

 Despite being able to capture a fantastic amount of detail on this fossil, I was unable to complete creating it into one solid model.

The photogrammetry model was probably the most difficult one to produce a proper cloud. I believe this to be because of the size of the fossil but also because it was struggling to separate the tooth from the box it was standing on. The tooth was balanced on top of a small paper stand but the software was still finding it difficult to fully separate the model

After spending almost a full day retaking the video countless times, I decided to take what I had and try to work with it in Maya. This is when the main problem appeared.

Because the two halves of my previous models had met at quite a gentle angle, it was easy to connect them without there being an obvious warping of the shape. Unfortunately the tooth meets at quite sharp angles across about 70% of the edges I needed merge making it more difficult because the objects had to line up perfectly. This was also made more difficult by the white trim around the tooth left by the box the software left on there.

Another problem with the sharp serrated edges was the detail capture by the texture. While it managed to correctly produce the serrated edge of the tooth this again made lining the texture up even more difficult. I had to cut the white of the edge of the box from the object without removing the texture of the serration.

All of these factors made this a more difficult model than I anticipated. After spending a few days trying various work-arounds, I have decided to leave the object for now while I produce some other work. There are a few things I want to try if I have time to revisit this fossil in both Maya and 3DF Zephyr, but for now I don't want to waste any more time when I could be producing more fossils and I think it will be good to look at it with fresh eyes at some point.