Point clouds

When revamping an existing building or ship so that some existing structures are removed and new ones are added, it is useful to be able to see how the old and the new structures will fit together. Point clouds allow you to do exactly that. If the existing structures have been scanned with a 3D scanner and the data is available as point cloud files, you can open the point clouds and the 3D models of the newly designed structures at the same time to see how they match. You can also use the Show Point Cloud Difference tool in Visualization Control menu. See Point clouds.

Note: Point clouds are always defined in project coordinates.

When eShare administrator has added point clouds to the eShare server as described in CADMATIC eShare Administration Guide, in eShare App you can see the point clouds in the model tree. eShare automatically loads the point clouds when you move in the model. You do not have to select the next point cloud from the list when you want to enter it.

It is possible to show a hierarchy for the point clouds. The hierarchy is defined by eShare administrator.

You can toggle the visibility of the point clouds by clicking the eye icon.

The point cloud files must contain scanner position information to be listed here. You can take snapshots and measurements, but measurements might not be exact. Right-click a bubble view to add a Smart Point or markup to it.

Bubble view

Entering the bubble view mode moves the camera to the scanner position. You can rotate the view around this position, and you can zoom in or out with the mouse wheel. In panoramic view, you can move the camera by clicking the arrow marker, or focus the camera by clicking the rectangle.

Point cloud with arrow marker Point cloud with rectangle focus

There are various ways to open a bubble view:

You can open the bubble view of a specific point cloud by right-clicking the point cloud in the object tree and selecting Show Bubbleview.
You can click the bubble view button in the main toolbar to open the nearest bubble view. If the button is not enabled, either the currently loaded point clouds do not have scanner position information, or a bubble view is already open.
You can click a scanner position marker in the 3D view. You can do this also when a bubble view is already open, to move the viewpoint to another scanner position.

In bubble view mode, an additional toolbar is displayed at the top of the 3D view. The toolbar displays the name of the point cloud, a button for switching between point view and panoramic view, a button for orbiting around the scanner position, and a button for closing the bubble view. Closing the bubble view sets the viewing angle to where it was before entering the bubble view.

E57 file format feature support

CADMATIC supports reading the E57 feature categories XYZ, RAE, RGB, INT and MUL.

Show/hide details

Support for E57 features

Feature Name	Abbreviation	Read	Write
Cartesian points	XYZ	Yes	—
Cylindrical imagery	CYL	—	—
Geodetic information	GEO	—	—
Multiple images	MIM	—	—
Multiple returns	RET	—	—
Multiple scans	MUL	Yes	—
Pinhole imagery	PIN	—	—
Point color	RGB	Yes	—
Point groups	GRP	—	—
Point intensity	INT	Yes	—
Spherical imagery	SPH	—	—
Spherical points	RAE	Yes	—
Structured point sets	STR	—	—
Time stamps	TIM	—	—
Visual reference imagery	REF	—	—

Support for E57 extensions

Extension Name	Read	Write
ASPRS LAS format information	—	—
Point normals	—	—

For more information on E57 features, see http://www.libe57.org/features.html.