Merging Objects in Meshmixer

In this assignment we were to merge two mesh objects together using Meshmixer.

Since I had materials for trying out photogrammetry using Meshroom already prepared I wanted to see if I could create my own object and connect it with another mesh object I downloaded from cgtrader.com

- phone/ camera

- Meshmixer

- Meshroom (optional)

Using Meshroom I tried to create a mesh object out of a baozi squishy, I was not sure if it would work since the color of the baozi was quite reflective, nevertheless since the weather was quite cloudy it helped with the pictures and Meshroom accepted most of them. Altogether it took me about 70+ images and two tries to create 2/3 of the baozi.

In the first try only half of the baozi rendered because the other side's pictures were rejected by the program as unusable. On the second try, I retook pictures of the other side and added them to the first rendering, yet although the program accepted the second batch of pictures, it didn't render much of the other side (see pic above - part of the points are missing).

One reason for that could be that the program didn't recognize the second batch of images as the missing part of the baozi's first render and used them to patch up other, already rendered sections. Another reason could be that the side that didn't render was more exposed to the outside light and was simply too reflective for Meshroom to see them.

(.obj file of the baozi not included, Instructables didn't accept it)

After importing the baozi into Meshroom I needed to position it correctly on the plane using the transform tool since it uploaded upside down (pic. 1). Next I cleaned up the unnecessary elements that were created alongside the baozi (pic.2) using the lasso and brush > fill & erase tools. Finally, I turned the baozi into a solid shape which smoothed out its surface a bit and filled out the gaps.

The solid shape of the baozi still had a significant gap that didn't look very natural but playing around with brushes I tried to smooth the whole baozi as much as possible and add the characteristic creases at the top. The best way to shape the object for me was to use the draw2 brush interchangeably with the flatten brush. In general I would not recommend filling out/ shaping such big missing surfaces with just the brush tools as it is a bit of work and it's not that easy to make it look natural and as detailed as the correctly scanned parts (but it's possible).

After downloading the object set from cgtrader.com (set linked for download at the introduction) and importing the file into Meshmixer with my baozi I noticed that the sizing of both was significantly different so I thought that the baozi could act as an abstract table for the smaller set of food. I colored the smaller set and positioned it. Finally, I selected the two objects and combined them making one.