Import point cloud to ArchiCAD and make a terrain from it

[Anonymous]

Hi,
I found an interesting article which describes some of the steps needed in order to import a point cloud to ArchiCAD and make a terrain from that point cloud:
https://asiabim.wordpress.com/2016/02/10/importing-point-clouds-and-modelling-the-terrain

However the the final terrain looks a little bit "flat" so to say (photo attached below).

Is it possible to somehow make that terrain a bit more precise (meaning: it corresponding to the position of the actual point cloud points)?

Thank you for the reply.

[Laszlo Nagy]

Another user suggested me on Twitter that Cigraph's Architerra also has some distance filtering options when importing XYZ files:

https://twitter.com/OddGoderstad/status/700662321039826946

[David Maudlin]

nedostizni wrote:

David wrote:

nedostizni wrote:
It's almost impossible to name which X, Y, Z coordinate coresponds to which point in a point cloud with randomly arranged points.

Understandable. This thread has a link to software that can reduce the number of points: Point cloud - Too many points.
...
No, this will work for any polygonal shape, but I think ArchiCAD finds the boundary then adds the other points to the interior (might not work correctly for an "S" type shape).

So If I understood you correctly, in case of rectangular (rectangular in top view) point cloud, it just needs to be exported from some other application (Rhino3d for example) in .xyz file, and imported to ArchCAD.

But if the point cloud in .xyz file is not rectangular (rectangular in top view), then it needs to be edited according to your article? Otherwise, the "S" shaped point cloud will look rectangular too?

Did I understand that correctly or not?

A point cloud is just a collection of points, there is no explicit boundary. A Mesh has an explicit boundary (perimeter) which ArchiCAD has to create when the points are converted to a Mesh. The xyz or txt file does not carry information about which points are interior and which are perimeter, so it is possible that ArchiCAD will create a Mesh with an incorrect perimeter, which can be fixed after import. In any case the xyz file does not need to be rectangular.

David

[Anonymous]

Thank you Laszlo.

Thank you David. Then I did not understand the purpose of your article. It shows how to create a point cloud manually (so to speak), without having to create it in some other application (Rhino, 3ds max...)?

[David Maudlin]

nedostizni wrote:
Then I did not understand the purpose of your article. It shows how to create a point cloud manually (so to speak), without having to create it in some other application (Rhino, 3ds max...)?

The purpose was just to show that the Place Mesh from Surveyor's Data command could be used for more than importing terrain data, that shapes generated from points, like a geometry formula, could be imported into ArchiCAD as a Mesh. With the addition of more modeling tools since AC 14 (Shell, Morph), this method has less of a use.

David

[Anonymous]

Thank you David

...that shapes generated from points, like a geometry formula, could be imported into ArchiCAD as a Mesh.

Did I understand it correctly that your article describes how to manually create a point cloud, without it being previously created (the point cloud) in some other modelling application?

[David Maudlin]

nedostizni wrote:
Did I understand it correctly that your article describes how to manually create a point cloud, without it being previously created (the point cloud) in some other modelling application?

Yes. As long as the .txt file is formatted correctly, ArchiCAD will read the 3D points and create a Mesh from them. The source of the 3D points can be anything.

David

[Anonymous]

Thank you for the help once again.

[agroni]

I am opening a discussion from 2016 here again
Currently working with AC22, has there been any improvement concerning the transformation of a point cloud into a mesh? Grasshopper?

[Josh Verran]

Rekindling a bit of an old post here, I have been playing around with https://opentopography.org/ , from there I'm able to download point clouds from various locations on the globe.

From there I have been opening in Cloud Compare, I'm very fresh, but I think there's a way to manipulate the point cloud (crop, reduce points).

From there can export as either *.e57, or XYZ (TXT).

Can import the point cloud to AC, and/or create mesh from the XYZ (with a little tweaking in Excel).