Dense point cloud crash issue

PIX4Dmatic PIX4Dmatic Questions/Troubleshooting
1

Pix4dmatic crashes out with my dense point cloud creation. Says it failed to open an empty point cloud.
Cannot get it to work. No problems with other project. On this project with Mavic3E, I had to use three batteries, so it logged data in three files. I loaded all of them. The points look good when I inspect, but the program crashes. Using new HP workstation with Windows 11.

image

2

I am having the same problem with my 3E and pix4dmatic. A REAL PROBLEM.

3

Hi @frank1

Could you please share the log files of your project? It’s hard to comment on what happened without more information. You can export these in Help > Export project logs and then share them here by attaching a file (if it’s small enough) or by posting a link to a Google Drive, WeTransfer, etc…

Thanks!

4

Hi Frank and all,

I am sharing a list of solutions that Frank and I discussed in the Support ticket for others’ reference to try.

After checking the log file (.txt), machine specification information file (.nfo), and the quality report (.pdf) that Frank shared, the following solutions could help with this case:

  1. Update the GPU driver.
    We have an article with step-by-step instructions on how to update the GPU driver. Please refer to: How to update the driver for an NVIDIA graphics card - PIX4Dmapper
    Although originally wrote this in the section for PIX4Dmapper, but it applies to any software that use much of the GPU resource. Anyone is free to search for their latest GPU driver here: Official Drivers | NVIDIA
  2. Try saving a copy of the project folder to another local drive.
    For example: typically disk C:/ and D:/ are the two main local drives. If C:/ does not work, try saving the project on D:/ drive. You can try to ensure both the dataset and the project folder are saved within the same drive, though if the dataset remains in another local drive would work fine as well. Keep in mind that we do not support nor test remote accessing PIX4Dmatic, using an external drive or a network drive.
    The quickest way to open the project folder is from File > Open project folder.
  3. Try a lower image scale for the Dense point cloud step.
  4. Use Standard algorithm instead of Hardware accelerated if Hardware accelerated was previously used.

    Especially, you can try this when you see this error message in the log file.
    Error Algorithm: Hardware accelerated
  5. Ensure the path directory has less than 256 characters by shortening the project name. Windows has an upper limit till about 256 characters.

If others also experience crashing in the Densification step with PIX4Dmatic (v1.46.0), could you also share the log file for our references and investigation?

If one of the solutions above helps anyone experiencing this issue, please also let us know which helps. :slight_smile:

Thank you all for your patience and understanding.

Best regards,
Rosana (she/her)

5

Thanks, Rosana. I canceled the renewal. I really like the quality and speed of Pix4dmatic when it doesn’t crash. Please me know if they will or will not refund my rental for this month. While it would run on certain smaller jobs OK, the one that got to larger number of photos is what caused the problem. I will continue to rent it when I need it on smaller jobs. Pix4dmatic is so expensive that I don’t want to rent it except when I actually need it.

Thanks,
Frank L. Willis, PhD, PE, PLS, PG
Willis Engineering and Scientific, LLC
Alexandria, LA 71301
318-473-4100

6

Hi Frank,

Thank you for sharing. I replied to our support ticket.

Looking forward to receiving your reply there.

Best regards,
Rosana (she/her)

7

Hi , I’m getting the same issue. its a re-process job using updated GCP’s and crashes at the point cloud stage .
2024-05-28_08-40-04.txt (441.0 KB)

8

Solution, reopen as a new job, as opposed to re-do. I used to have to do this with mapper sometimes as well.

9

I simply abandoned Pix4D and moved to a different product. I don’t need Pix4d anymore.

10

Glad to hear you managed to fix it. Thanks for sharing the log file too. We’ll have a look to better understand what happened, as it is not expected to crash. Depending on the crash, it can be tricky to reproduce, so we may reach out to you again.

Sorry to hear you’ve stopped using Pix4D. We do try to improve the product at each release. I do not know when you’ve stopped, but the product has evolved quite a bit since last year. May be worth a try in the future again.

11

Hi , I’m getting the same issue. its a re-process job using updated GCP’s and crashes at the point cloud stage .Blockquote

Hello, is it possible that this project is on a network drive? I see this and similar paths in the log file

resultsDir: //ttgroup.local/models/TIR_Public/.../private/4a6a9ab3-828d-4787-961f-51993ed5f132/calibration

If the project is on a network drive then could you try reprocessing it locally on your PC please? PIX4Dmatic tries to optimize the RAM usage when working with point clouds, and for this it needs a reliable access to the file system that is not sometimes possible with network drives.

Looking forward to hear back from you!

Kind regards,
Alexey

12

A year to document the problem exists was enough for me