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.

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

In eBrowser (licensed version), you can open point clouds from a number of different ASCII and binary formats, including the native CADMATIC formats .cpc, .cpd, .cpe, and .cpx. It is recommended that you use the 64-bit application version because point clouds can be quite large and consume a lot of memory.

You can navigate in a point cloud in the same way that you navigate in a 3D model, and you can take snapshots and measurements, for example, but measurements might not be exact. If the point cloud file contains scanner position information, it is possible to view the point cloud in bubble view mode that is fixed at the scanner position and does not allow moving the camera.

Loading point clouds

You can open point cloud files using the same button that you use to open a 3D model. You can open multiple model files and point cloud files at the same time. Point clouds are for viewing only; when saving a model, the loaded point clouds are not included in the saved model.

Point clouds in the model tree

Point clouds are located in a separate Point Clouds branch of the object tree, and its subnodes are alphabetically sorted. The visibility of point clouds can be toggled by clicking the eye icon.

Point cloud files may also contain the scanner position. The point cloud icon in the object tree indicates whether or not scanner position is included. In the picture above, point cloud pumps2_2 does not have a scanner position, but the other point clouds do have it. When a point cloud has scanner position information, opening the point cloud opens it in bubble view, at the scanner position. If scanner position is not available, opening the point cloud moves the camera to the center of the point cloud.

Point cloud visualization using points or splats

By default, a point cloud is viewed as points. You can change the points to splats to see the shading at a less granular level. This might help to improve the performance or the general visual outlook.

  • To change the visualization, click the Visualization Control button , and select Points or Splats, as appropriate.

In the picture below, the left side displays the point cloud visualized with points, and the right side displays splats.

Bubble view

You can open point clouds that have scanner position information into the so-called bubble view. Entering the bubble view mode moves the camera to the scanner position and camera angle is set at 120 degrees. 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.

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.

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.

Related Topics

Enter nearest bubble view