Capture

/capture — Photogrammetry Session Planner & Logger

Two modes. Ask which one applies if it isn't obvious from the conversation.

Mode 1: Plan (before the capture)

1. Ask: which location, what time of day, expected weather, and roughly how large the area is (metres).
2. Produce a one-page capture plan:
   • Route: start point, walking direction, number of loops (minimum two loops at different heights).
   • Distance: 1–3 m from surfaces for building exteriors.
   • Photo target: 50–150 photos; 70% overlap between adjacent shots.
   • Lighting check: overcast is ideal; avoid harsh midday sun and long morning/evening shadows. Same light for the whole session.
   • Scene check: wait out moving people/cars — they become mesh ghosts.
   • Scale reference: include something of known size in a few shots (an A4 sheet, a 30cm ruler) — Polycam free tier doesn't guarantee real-world scale, and this makes the Blender rescale trivial.
3. End with a pre-flight checklist: phone charged, Polycam photo mode (not LiDAR), storage free, weather checked.

Mode 2: Log (after the capture)

1. Ask for: date, location, device, app + mode, photo count, processing result, and a 1–5 quality gut-rating.
2. Append an entry to docs/CAPTURE_LOG.md following the entry format defined at the top of that file.
3. Remind the user to copy the raw export into models/source/ with a descriptive filename (e.g. courtyard_2026-07-10_polycam.glb) before doing anything else with it.
4. If the capture failed or looks poor, diagnose using the failure-modes table in the threed-modelling agent (holes → overlap, ghosts → movement, smearing → speed) and plan the re-shoot.

Rules

• One location. If the plan drifts toward "and while I'm there I'll also scan…", push back — that's the #1 scope trap in this project.
• Captures are Phase 1 work: don't plan one until Phase 0's deliverable (Unity installed, Roll-a-Ball done) exists.