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Metashape Workstation

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Case Study with Utah State

Utah State University is using photogrammetry and virtual reality to design a new community on Powder Mountain in the Ogden Valley of Utah. Benjamin George, a professor of landscape architecture at USU, is using three Puget Systems workstations for this particular project, and says by using VR his students are able to design as if they are actually in the landscape. One of the Puget systems runs Pix4D for processing the thousands of images they took of the mountain, while the other two are used for design and modeling in VR.

Imagine being able to close your eyes and visualize what you want to create. With Puget Systems workstations, the students at Utah State are now able to work on projects that exceed what they were able to do before and do it faster.

Metashape Workstation FAQ


Q: What happened to PhotoScan?

A: Metashape is simply a new name for Agisoft's photogrammetry application, formerly known as PhotoScan. The underlying application and functionality is still the same, it has just been rebranded - and, of course, it is being continually updated and improved too.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU (video card) more important for Metashape?

A: Metashape needs a balance of both the CPU and video cards, and the usage of each varies across the different steps involved in using the application. The first two major steps, Align Photos and Build Dense Cloud, are the only core parts of the Metashape workflow to use video cards - but those steps can accounts for 50% or more of the total processing time, so the GPUs are extremely important to performance. Build Dense Cloud also uses multiple CPU cores to good effect, but the Build Mesh step is heavily dependent on clock speed; lowering that too much will hamper performance. You can read more both CPU and GPU scaling in the articles linked to on the right.

Q: How many video cards does Metashape support?

A: In the past, multiple video cards could provide a significant boost in PhotoScan (the old name for Metashape). However, as the software has matured and video cards have gotten faster it seems like having more than one is less beneficial now that it once was. Most users are probably fine with a single video card now, or possibly two for some situations. Check out our articles on GPU scaling in Metashape to see more details.

Q: How much RAM do I need?

A: Memory requirements in Metashape depend directly on how many photos you are working with, the size of the images themselves, and the quality settings you want to use. Agisoft has published a handy document showing the RAM needs with different combinations of photos, using 12MP (megapixels) as a base image size. This can be used to estimate the amount of RAM you will need by factoring in your image count, photos size, and quality goals.

Q: Should I get a solid state drive (SSD) or hard drive (HDD)?

A: We strongly recommend using solid-state drives on all computers these days. They have a huge impact on every aspect of computer usage, from faster boot times to more responsive operation. Metashape will also load images more quickly from a fast drive, both at the start of a project and a couple times throughout processing. Image sets can also take up a lot of space, though, so having a secondary hard drive for archival of projects and other data is handy.

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