Amita Capture

I ended up upgrading my Mac mini to macOS 13, so I can try Amita Capture. I paid the $15, or around $16 I think after tax.

Well, it is buggy. But the results, are probably the best, no idea what it’s doing, differently then say PhotoCatch.

RAW quality works, but only with USDZ, at least on my Mac mini with a M1 CPU. Review says it doesn’t work, but guess they didn’t try USDZ only. You can convert with Xcode or Python. I’m going to use Python on my desktop, still no texture though. Just like Xcode.

You need this for Python, the code they provided doesn’t work, but wasn’t hard to figure out, below is my script.


#!/usr/bin/env python3

import sys
import aspose.threed

# load the USDZ in an object of Scene
scene = aspose.threed.Scene.from_file(sys.argv[1]);
# save USDZ as a OBJ
scene.save(sys.argv[2], aspose.threed.FileFormat.WAVEFRONT_OBJ);

I saved it as usdz_to_obj in ~/bin, which is in my PATH. So I call it like usdz_to_obj path/to/usdz path/to/obj, you may have to save it in your home folder, the obj file. If you go to the above link, you can probably convert to other formats as well. And either edit .bashrc to have export DOTNET_SYSTEM_GLOBALIZATION_INVARIANT=1, or put DOTNET_SYSTEM_GLOBALIZATION_INVARIANT=1 before you run it, or make a helper script, and name the Python script something else. And that might be a bad solution, might break other stuff. And perhaps that’s why it got a permission denied error. I think you need to install .NET. Not the right openSUSE version. Don’t ask me which .NET version, perhaps the Aspose site says.

Don’t use a shitty online converter, you risk your model getting stolen.

I won’t pay for a subscription, but I will pay a one time fee, and it was worth the risk, I will barely need to cut anything from the model, only one model probably needs cutting in it.

No video support, so use ffmpeg to export frames.

And the Aspose site says “.NET Core: Dependencies of .NET Core Runtime. Installing .NET Core Runtime itself is NOT required.”. So what are the dependencies? Looks like krb5, libicu, libopenssl1_0_0. Apparently not libicu72. The only one available in openSUSE Tumbleweed.

Probably 6 or 7, but good luck with openSUSE, I just need the right libicu. Already have libicu-devel.

Maybe this will help. Nope. No new info really.

Made a script, and got rid of export in .bashrc. Probably a better solution. Still run it the same way. Didn’t actually test it though, well not with an actual file. Looks like everything is being passed to it, nice.

You might want to add checks, to see if file exists, and output is writable and maybe doesn’t exist.

I didn’t allow it access to the internet, but it didn’t ask. Too bad there’s no textures. And it has a texture now, if you need a texture, extract the png file from the USDZ archive, or it opens in my archive program. I need to make Python extract it for me, and put it with the rest of files, then it’s all automated. It already generates a mtl file.

Aligning sort of works with CloudCompare, I probably need to do the fine alignment now. And I still need to cut something off of it. Now to save this file, and finish it some other time or day. Use the default options for the fine alignment.

Only cost me $15 or so.

I’ll be having the camera and object as close as the last video was from now on though.

CloudCompare is the only free one I could figure out how to cut in. And finding paid software that will work in macOS or Linux, is too much work. Also, can’t afford much anyways. The paid one I have on my Mac, doesn’t seem to let you cut. Probably can’t merge and easily align either.

You can also use this on a Mac, to extract frames from video. It’s slower then ffmpeg though. I did finally get it to compile, but the binary provided works too. Well, it says you need a file, didn’t actually run it with a file path. And the quality is fine with jpg anyways.

Maybe they will fix the bugs someday, or not, it works as it is. But if it could do obj files, it would be nicer. I’ll eventually make my Python script better, so it can extract the png file. And check for valid paths. But I don’t need the textures, so maybe I won’t do shit. It’s for scanning stuff to 3D print, textures are useless for that, you need a paintbrush.

Maybe macOS 13 improved the API it uses. Didn’t test any other app in macOS 13, at least all the features aren’t locked behind a subscription. There might be some bugs that prevent some stuff from working. But luckily, you can convert USDZ. You don’t even have to do it from macOS. I won’t be testing PhotoCatch or anything else, as this app works fine for me. I should remove it if I didn’t. $15 isn’t that much to lose, to find out if it works.

I won’t be upgrading to the next major macOS version right away, if ever. Usually there’s bugs right away, they still haven’t fixed a bug on my watch, the wrong time is shown for when I got a notification sometimes. Might be wrong on the iPhone now too, good job Apple. No idea when my phone got the email though in the app. If you look at the email time, the iPhone was wrong too.

I don’t write reviews in Apple controlled App Stores. I wrote a bad review, and they didn’t approve it. Did they ever? Probably not, too lazy to look. And I’ll gladly use a third party App Store if I ever can. Apple can’t fix bugs, doesn’t approve reviews for unknown reasons, doesn’t even tell you why. Maybe the review wasn’t even sent to them. If you don’t like freedom of speech, Apple reviews are great. I was trying to tell people the app is useless, and they just blame T-Mobile, when in fact, it’s their problem.

So if you think Apple is less evil then Google, they both suck the same amount. Apple may somehow suck worse. Except, their CPUs are better. Apple does business in China.

If there was a stable Linux phone, that might be a good option. If it costs more then $200, it better have a good CPU. Good luck finding such a Linux phone. And I need the Mac now for converting photos to 3D.

Can you leave a review on the App Store? I should leave a bad review, as they refused to approve my review on a shitty app.

Are iPhones private in China? That is the government can’t access anything on them. Well, nothing is actually “private” anyways. Unless you don’t believe in psychic abilities. The harder you try to hide something, the easier it is to see.

Oh right, Apple isn’t the government, they don’t have to provide freedom of speech. But why would they care about a backdoor, if they do business in China?

I still won’t waste time writing reviews in their App Store, that won’t get approved.