Advice - Large drone scan mesh into Archicad

[Aazmatazz]

Hi guys,

Im looking for a bit of advice.  
We have survey drone data from a site, which has been supplied to us as a 2023 sketchup file.  
Archicad throws up errors when trying to open (AC can only open skp files from 2019 and beyond).  
I opened the file in sketch up and it runs fine.  I saved the file out as an earlier skp file, imported that into AC and it worked!

The problem is the mesh is just over 1 million polys, so it grinds AC to a halt.  The mesh seems to work absolutely fine in both Sketchup and Blender though so im wondering if I've missed a setting or im approaching the import wrong?

Any advice would be much appreciated as im pulling out my hair on this one.

[Lingwisyer]

I have never imported a skp...

Alternatively, if you can get access to the raw surveyors data, could you possibly build the survey with a native mesh from nodes as that would be lighter. 

I use a plugin called ArchiTerra for this though as it gives you the option to cull nodes based on their distance from other nodes of the same elevation as well as nodes of different elevations. I have previously done a 200 sq km site on a computer with lower specs than my current and the performance has been fine.

Ling.

[Aazmatazz]

Hi,

Thanks for the speedy reply.  I have heard of ArchiTerra before but its pretty pricey and will it actually make the mesh load faster?  Idk.
The mesh is important as an object not a mesh so Im not sure i'd be able to use terrain tools on it?

I tried to import using the 'place mesh from surveyors data' using the supplied .xyz file but Archicad says it cannot read the data and exits.
Whats weird to me is how easily Sketchup deals with the file.  I can spin it and work on it while AC is still trying to load in the view.  

If it ran badly in Sketchup I'd put it down to the terrain object, but its smooth as silk.  Its only AC im having a problem on.

[Mike96]

If using  an approximation of the mesh is acceptable to you, there are numerous ways to simplify it. For example, you can use Blender, add a decimate collapse modifier to the object, set like 10% original mesh density, and export an STL, OBJ, FBX or whatever. You could also use ModelPort addon for Archicad to do the same, but it's paid. I'd go for the Blender way. SketchUp also has plugins for mesh approximation.

Archicad is not specifically designed to work with dense meshes, although I'm surprised that SketchUp handles this one better.

What is the biggest problem here - the time of loading (importing) the object to archicad or performance during work and model navigation when it's already imported?

"not sure i'd be able to use terrain tools on it?"

Not sure I understand the question. If you import the mesh as morph or as an object and then convert it to morph, and choose "all edges" display style for the morph, then all of its vertices should be snappable, which means, you can precisely place new geometres on top of them. But I wouldn't expect it to work smooth.

[Lingwisyer]

The mesh is important as an object not a mesh so Im not sure i'd be able to use terrain tools on it?

Native AC entities will almost always load faster than imported things. You generally have move flexibility too. ArchiTerra has it's own terrain tools built in. On the other hand, if you are just bringing it in from Sketchup as an object, you cannot do much to it...

.xyz file but Archicad says it cannot read the data 

Maybe not formatted correctly? It wants x, y, z in three seperate tabbed columns.

[Aazmatazz]

'What is the biggest problem here - the time of loading (importing) the object to archicad or performance during work and model navigation when it's already imported?'

I think the biggest issue for me is the performance during working.  I can see the drone scan in archicad, but when I move or select anything there is a 3-4 sec delay before my inputs are registered.  Unfortunately its just impossible to work like this.  
Im running a beast of a workstation too (i9/ rtx4090 / 64 GB RAM) so i just dont get it.

Just converting the object to a morph takes about 30 mins and archicad locking up seems to hang windows.

[Mike96]

Ya, pretty much every program somehow has much worse performance on imported data than on the data created natively.

Have you tried that mesh approximation in Blender? Do you have textures on that mesh? What if you remove textures beforehand?

I don't know if I can help you any more, but providing some screenshots is always welcome 🙂

[k_bauschert]

if not mentioned before there is a freeware tool called cloudcompare.
It can view and optimize pointcloud and xyz data. There are even some (german) youtube tutorial on cloudcompare and ArchiCAD.

[Nurbs]

I agree with k_bauschert

I use Cloud Compare for years now to prepare large scans for Archicad (reduce Points, split into pieces, remove parts, change colours etc.). Great freeware Software both for Mac and Win.

[Mike96]

Yes, k_bauschert, but Aazmatazz seems to want to work on mesh already, and not on point cloud. I think this thread needs more clarification. It definitely would benefit from screenshot provided by the Author, because I think we're losing the topic now.