The Virtual Inspector is a PIX4Dcloud tool to analyze the project images in full resolution by exploring the 3D model. It is possible to highlight, share, and export 2D areas of interest for more insights. Inspections provide flexibility to document a project on PIX4Dcloud and/or for third-party usage.
How to access the Virtual Inspector
- The project has been processed on PIX4Dcloud.
- The point cloud or/and the 3D textured mesh must have been generated on PIX4Dcloud, meaning the Virtual Inspector cannot be used on outputs that were uploaded to PIX4Dcloud.
- The project images were not captured using a fisheye lens camera (e.g. Bebop 2, GoPro).
- For projects uploaded from Pix4Dmapper for processing, ensure the box Camera Internals and Externals, AAT, BBA is checked (default) in Process > Processing Options... > 1. Initial Processing > Calibration.
To access the virtual inspector:
- Open a project.
- Select the 3D view.
- On the right side of the view, click
. - Navigate the model, zoom, and orient it to locate an area of interest.
- Click on a point of the model (gray cross) to find the images that contain that point.
- The Virtual inspector opens on the right panel.
How to use the Virtual Inspector
To inspect a project area:
1. (Optional) On the right panel, add Name, Description and Tags.
2. Scroll the list of images containing the point to inspect. The order depends on the distance to the point and its position on the image. Click 
to display the images in full screen.
3. There are three inspection features:
Add a rectangular box (annotation) to highlight features on a specific image. Once drawn, the box cannot be moved.
Pin relevant images of the inspection. Other images are greyed out and are not accessible anymore after saving the inspection. Images containing boxes are automatically pinned.
Export and save to desktop an interesting section of an image.
Adjust the corners and move the crop zone to select the area. Unlock the aspect ratio for more flexibility. If the image contains a box, the default crop zone is automatically adjusted to it. Click Export.
- If the gray cross or the box(es) appears too small, lock the aspect ratio and reduce the resolution.
- RESET reverts the crop zone to the full size and resolution of the image.
4. Click Save inspection as annotation. Alternatively, click
to discard the changes and close the inspector.
Saved inspections are added to the Annotations layer.
The virtual inspector is an excellent tool, but I'm having troubles with larger projects when using the "Inspect" tool.
When I click an area on the point cloud, the sidebar is quick to bring up the thumbnails of the images containing that point, but it takes in interminable amount of time to load the larger preview image, or the full resolution images. I have quite a lot of photos, with the inspector finding 100+ images of that area. Is the inspector trying to load *all* of the full resolution images before showing me any of them?
Hi Larry,
I would be happy to help you but this time the issue is related to the speed of the Internet you have, and there is nothing we can do about it. I checked the projects you uploaded to the cloud, but for us, it takes a maximum of 3 sec to load the full resolution picture. How long does it take you?
Best!
Thanks Beata,
I've confirmed that it loads much faster on a different connection, thanks for checking!
Hi Larry,
Good to know that you found another way to make it work!
Best!
I have a model of a small building. Less than 30 pictures were required. The model looks great but when I click on the inspection mode I get "Preparing the model for inspection". It never proceeds past this.
I have tried uploading results from home.
I have tried starting a new model.
What am I missing?
**Edit: Inspection mode works on a mobile browser (same internet connection). But on the desktop on chrome, firefox, and IE won't work.
Hi,
I have checked on my side and apparently everything is working fine. I used the Inspection Tool with Chrome to inspect your Dome.
Sometimes such processing can take a while and even if you got a message saying that your project is ready, sometimes it needs more time in order to finish to process the whole project and prepared the model for inspection.
Let's us know if it is working now for you or not.
Best
Are there plans to make the Virtual Inspector work with projects which have been processed locally and uploaded to the cloud? We try to process most jobs locally to stay within the cloud processing limits, but clients are then unable to use the inspection tool when we upload those jobs to the cloud.
Hi
The question Larry Laxdal is asking to be able to use the virtual inspection tool locally on the desktop, is there a plan to implement this function?
We have sensitive assets that I dont want to processes on the cloud.
Thank you
Hi torbjørn. As of now, the mapper team is not working on integrating this feature but I can pass along your support to help prioritize this in future releases.
In order to use the virtual inspector you need to process your project in the cloud. Id like to use my own results generated locally to share, so can i process in the cloud and then replace the results files with the locally produced version(cloud and mosaic), still keeping the ability to use the inspector in the viewer?? Is that a possible workaround?
Hoping to get an idea if that would work instead of waiting hours to process only to find out it doesnt work, haha.
Ryan B
Hi Ryan. The inspector tool should work if you replace the ortho or pointcloud. That may be a viable workaround.
Hello, I have processed a project in the cloud but I cannot access to the inspector, I get the following message: We could not find any images containing the selected point of the model.
But, the images are in the files of the project. I've also tried it in another connetion and I can't either.
Thank you.
Hi Angelica. I looked into the project and it looks like reprocessing fixed the issue. If you have any more issues consider opening a support request and we can help you get everything figured out.
Hello.
Can the virtual inspector be used via the Pix4D API (python)?