SideFX released a free plugin for Houdini, which implements the open source AliceVision photogrammetry framework into the 3D animation software and effects. The plug-in, which is available in SideFX's Game Development Toolset, allows you to import image-based textured meshes into Houdini and display them in the viewport.

The framework creates 3D meshes with textures from photos of real objects, exporting their geometry to OBJ format. Intermediate point cloud data may be exported in Alembic format while depth maps can be exported as EXR files.

Although the AliceVision plugin works from the command line, free GUIs are available for it: the Meshroom photogrammetric tool and the MeshroomMaya plugin for Maya.

Availability and System Requirements

The AliceVision plug-in for Houdini from SideFX is available for Houdini 16.5+ as part of the free Game Development Toolset, available for Windows only.

AliceVision is available for download free of charge, although you will need a new Nvidia GPU, as the plugin uses CUDA for GPU processing.