Adding Camera Profiles to Pix4D to Improve Processing Results

When we change the lens on a camera and the camera doesn't know that you have changed it, the media you capture with the modified camera will still have the original stock lens information stored in the EXIF. If you process the captured images in Pix4D you will have poor results because Pix4D reads the media EXIF information and doesn't know the lens has been changed. So we need to add a new camera profile to the Pix4D camera database, here's how to do that:

Camera Profiles:

GoPro® HERO® 4 Black - 3.37mm Lens - 12MP (Wide) Photo

GoPro® HERO® 4 Black - 3.97mm Lens - 12MP (Wide) Photo

GoPro® HERO® 4 Black - 4.35mm Lens - 12MP (Wide) Photo

GoPro® HERO® 4 Black - 5.4mm Lens - 12MP (Wide) Photo

GoPro® HERO® 4 Black - 8.25mm Lens - 12MP (Wide) Photo

Steps to Add Custom Camera Profiles:

1. Close Pix4D if it is open
2. Locate the user database file on your computer at: C:\Users\[USERNAME]\AppData\Local\pix4d\common\16\ucmdb.xml    where [USERNAME] is your Windows computer login name. The AppData folder is hidden so you will need to enable hidden files and folders in your file browser in order to see it.
3. Open the xml file in a text editor like Notepad (should be able to just double-click to open, otherwise open your text editor and drag the file into the open editor window)
4. Download the camera profile above that corresponds to your modified camera.
5. Open the xml camera profile in your text editor
6. Copy the text from the <camera> to the </camera>
7. On the ucmdb.xml file that is open in your editor, paste the copied text after one of the other </camera> lines. If no </camera> lines exist, copy it after the <vendorId value="pix4d"/> line and before the </cameraModelDB> line. Example xml download HERE.
8. Save the ucmdb.xml file
9. Relaunch Pix4D and either start a new project or open an existing one.
10. Click the Camera icon (Image Properties Editor) at the top left of the main window. If this is a new project, go to the next step.
11. Click the "View..." button under the "Selected Camera Model" section.
12. Click the drop-down from the "Camera Model Name" and select the profile you have added, which should have a "user" icon (upper half of a person profile).
13. Select the "OK" button at the bottom and run your project.

Any questions please let us know.