See DSM Project Requirements and SmartPoints Project Requirements for the basic requirements for project setup. You’ll notice that they’re similar.
A DSM project using SmartPoints will begin with the SmartPoints automated project. This involves importing photos, and running SmartPoints project processing to detect and match feature points and process/orient the project. Before commencing with DSM work, it is important to ensure the project has low residuals. For best results aim for a maximum point residual of 2.0 pixels - the lower the better. A properly calibrated camera will be important. For a quick project, slightly higher residuals should be ok. In most cases, a SmartPoints project will be ready for DSM work as soon as it completes.
Next, define the DSM area of interest using the DSM Trim tool (see DSM Trims). The region should encompass the area to be modeled with the dense point cloud. The trims can be on one or both of the photos in a pair. You can also choose to use the entire photograph to define the boundary or you can use an approximate Surface (see DSM Approximate Surfaces).
Save this project to disk as your starting point (you may wish to return to it as you experiment).
You can now run the DSM process (see Dense Surface Modeling / PhotoModeler Premium).
Click the Create Dense Surface tool (Cloud/Mesh Tools Tab in the SmartMatch Workspace) to start the process (note if you decided to use a predefined approximate Surface for the DSM extents or depth range, select the Surface first before clicking the Create Dense Surface tool - the Surface can be selected in a Surface Table, a 3D Viewer or on a photo 3D projection).
In the DSM Options Dialog select the pairs of photos to process (we suggest a single pair to start with but you can select one or more pairs or use the Select Best Photo Pairs Dialog tool define a set of photo pairs to process, see also Multiple Photo Projects), choose an Extents type (from DSM Trims, whole photo boundary, or from selected surface(s)), and change any other parameters you need (we suggest leaving the default values to start with), and press Execute.
Open a 3D Viewer and in the 3D Viewer Options Dialog turn on Triangulated Mesh display (in Cloud/Mesh group). Turning the surface type to textured will display the point clouds using an individual RGB color extracted from the photo making the cloud appear textured. Study your result and then fine tune with changes in parameters or changes in photo pairs. See the DSM Troubleshooting section if you don’t get the result you expect.