Orthophotos (Orthomosaics)

Nira now supports uploading and viewing orthophotos - also known as orthomosaics.

More enhancements are in the pipeline, including:

• View and Edit measurements and callouts/annotations created within the 3D viewer
• Create measurements and callouts/annotations within the orthophoto viewer
• Layer list window with support for grouping
• Support for single-band orthophoto files (e.g. elevation maps). Currently, for basic visualization of elevation you may convert your elevation maps to RGBA before uploading them to Nira.
• Create asset thumbnails from within the orthophoto viewer
• Ortho facades (currently, only top-down orthophotos are supported)
• View cameras and access photos within the orthophoto viewer

To upload an orthophoto:

1. Export an orthophoto from your application of choice, and select .tif or .tiff (GeoTIFF) as the output format. Currently, Nira only supports GeoTIFF formatted orthophotos. If possible, configure your application to export the orthophoto using the EPSG 3857 coordinate system, also known as WGS 84 / Pseudo-Mercator -- Spherical Mercator. This is not required, but it will reduce the processing time and may provide a higher quality result. You should also configure your application to export the orthophoto with an alpha channel, which will prevent it from having black or white borders around it.

2. To upload, drag your .tif file into Nira (Learn more). You can also include geometry, texture, and camera  files if you'd like your orthophoto to be accompanied by 3D data. Follow our export guide for your application to learn how to export 3D data files. To add an orthophoto to an existing asset, follow our guide How can I upload additional files to an existing asset?

To access an orthophoto, just click on the asset once the processing of your upload is complete. Please be aware that if your asset includes 3D data files, you'll need to click on the '2D' button located in the lower right corner of the interface in order to activate the orthophoto viewer.

To adjust the visibility or opacity of orthophotos:

Your orthophotos are displayed at the top of the layer list window. Use the visibility toggle icon and opacity sliders to the right of each ortohphoto to adjust these settings.

Screenshots

The orthophoto viewer: An orthophoto of a concrete factory.

The orthophoto viewer: Zoomed in to show the detail of the orthophoto.