topic Point cloud - Place plan on layout in Documentation

Point cloud - Place plan on layout

DangCad1 — Fri, 10 Oct 2025 10:09:05 GMT

Using Archicad 24, I have managed to import a point cloud from an E57 file. It all looks good in plan view (see screenshot 1), but when I try to make a view out of this and place it in a layout, the pointcloud is not visible.

I've found one possible workaround which is to make an axonometric view from the top, and place this view in the layout. But unfortunately, it turns out totally black (see screenshot 2), probably because all the points, including the one on the floor is visible (see screenshot 3 for a zoom-in).

Is there any way to get around this? I want the plan view in the layout to look like it does in the first screenshot, since I want to print it as a plan in scale to use as base for a manual survey.

Operating system used: Windows 10

Re: Point cloud - Place plan on layout

karsten_bauschert — Fri, 10 Oct 2025 14:08:21 GMT

The best way would be using the BIMmTool plugin for working with point clouds.

The feature "ortho-photo" is perfect for this use case, but not included in the free/lite licence as far as i know.

Re: Point cloud - Place plan on layout

Benedek Gaszpor — Fri, 10 Oct 2025 15:40:26 GMT

Hello @DangCad1 ,

I have found one workaround for this:
Since the point cloud object doesn't want to show itself on the sheet... It is quite shy like that, your approach to go from a 3D axonometric view was a good start.

But if you want to show only a clean outline of the walls you have to use the 3D Cutaways.

Then you can save a view while only showing a slice of the building.

Of course you might still be miffed by the quality of the image placed on the sheet.

For this in AC24, you have to go an extra mile and convince the view to have a better resolution.
And of course if your building has split levels, then you are in the collage game on the sheet...

See the attached GIF for the workflow.

(To see the precise workflow for the view resolution fix, check out the CONTRABIM YouTube channel from John Hallgarth: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CsiFz4mp1-A)

Hope this helped 🙂

Cheers!

Re: Point cloud - Place plan on layout

DangCad1 — Tue, 14 Oct 2025 08:52:52 GMT

Thank you! The method of slicing from both the bottom and the top works well in this case, since it sovles the issue of the floor showing up as a black surface.

I can now put the resulting 3D Axo Top view in a layout. However, if I want to continue using it in archicad (i.e drawing diagrams, sketches etc) on top of it, I can't figure out how. I tried to make a 3D Document from the Axo view but it shows as empty. I assume it's because of the pointcloud only consists of points, and I have to edit it to be surfaces/meshes etc. If anyone knows a good pipeline or tutorial for doing this, either in ArchiCAd or other software such as CloudCompare, please let me know!

Re: Point cloud - Place plan on layout

karsten_bauschert — Tue, 14 Oct 2025 11:22:31 GMT

Exporting the cut point views as bitmaps / pdf and reimporting as a drawing?
Calibrationg and placing needs some additional work as well i guess.
The orthophoto workflow of the addon generates these bitmaps as objects, correctly placed.