Free multi-platform Point Cloud processing software

[Laszlo Nagy]

One ARCHICAD user mentioned a software on Twitter which I think could be very useful for anybody who is trying to bring in Point Clouds to ARCHICAD:

https://twitter.com/OddGoderstad/status/684675050738442240

Turned out that he is using a free multi-platform Point Cloud processing software called CloudCompare:

http://www.danielgm.net/cc/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CloudCompare

It is very capable and opens lots of Point Cloud formats.
But one of its greatest features is that it can "thin down" the point cloud so the number of points in it can be drastically reduced:

https://twitter.com/OddGoderstad/status/791747390592192512

So you can use a function called "subsampling" in this software and this way you can take a huge Point Cloud file which may be too much for ARCHICAD and reduce the number of points to, e.g. by a factor of 10.

I hope this helps people who encounter such problem with this technology that will be increasingly part of our workflows.