Imported point clouds are misaligned

[Mike96]

Hello,
For months I have been struggling with this specific problem:
When importing E57 point clouds a into new, empty model, everything works fine. But as I keep working on a model (add 2D and 3D elements, views, change different settings etc.) and try adding more point point clouds that should stay aligned (e.g. subsequent stories of a building), suddenly one or more stories get kicked a few meters away horizontally.

While importing, I always stick to non-rotated floor plan. The issue is not about rotation but moving, though.
While importing, I always choose to place point cloud's origin at model origin.

The attached model does have this issue. If you import the two attached point clouds together in it, you'll see they are misaligned. However, if you import them into an empty model, they will stay properly aligned.

I have found a workaround that utilizes hotlinks. I import point clouds to an empty model, save them as hotlink module, place the module in my old model and embed it (break links), so the point clouds become part of the old model, and then they stay aligned. However, this method takes extra time which I want to save.

I always try to avoid transforming (rotating, moving and scaling) imported point clouds in my models. I treat their original coordinates as holy, as I often need to add extra clouds afterwards, and they have to stay aligned. Not to mention how slow Archicad is, whenever you try manipulating a point cloud.

This is clearly an Archicad-related problem, because these two point clouds are properly aligned when imported in other sortware, like Cloud Compare or Revit.

I noticed one more strange thing that seems related to this issue and might be a clue to help tracking down its root.
A point cloud imported to a new, empty model, based on default Archicad template, has its virtual corners (bounding box marked with black dots) wide just enough to enclose the actual physical span of point cloud object.
When you import these clouds into my attached model, their bounding boxes extend hundreds of meters beyond the cloud's actual size, but only until you change any setting or coordinate of the point cloud object.

Below, screenshots how they should look (upper) and how they look (lower):

 

 

Links to point clouds (they're too heavy to attach them here) - same content in both links, at your preference:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1_3jpf76KT8SPwnO6Annn-EzPtfQxHQ4E?usp=sharing
https://we.tl/t-UzBH0ld6IA

[Mike96]

Just a side note: you may or may not be aware that you can use 3D cutting planes in 3D view to restrict visibility of point clouds to certain extents. This can temporarily but drastically improve performance (as less points are displayed) so you don't have to decimate the clouds so much. But obviously, this will not fix your main problem.

[Jaime-airc_digital]

Hi Mike,

We model from point clouds all our projects and we developed a tool that enhances Archicad point cloud capabilities. Please test the demo at airc.market

One of the functionalities is to be able to show the point cloud origin temporarily at any moment to be able to federate different scans as you mention.

[Mike96]

Thanks, Jaime, for chiming in with your addon.

This will be a bit off-topic, but what would help me work with point clouds in Archicad are these:

1) ability to set cloud's floor plan display extents (bottom and top cut) but not just relative to current story (which is the existing functionality), but also to the zero level of the project,

2) better overall point cloud performance and ability to suspend snapping to points, or at least set different type / color of cursor's pen indicator for snapping, so that I always know whether I'm snapping to points or geometries (sometimes it's hard to see),

3) maybe the ability to display not only RGB colors for clouds, but also normals (if exist) and intensity, but more importantly, support for PTS format.

I guess most of these are not achievable via addon, but only through the core of Archciad. But just sayin'. It's what needs to be done. It's a shame that point clouds are so neglected in Archicad.

[Jaime-airc_digital]

Hi Mike,

Thanks for your feedback, hope you enjoy the demo of CloudTool and of course, let us know any improvements suggestions you may have.

The first point you mention is precisely how we set the Cloudtool to work, it can show the floor plan range selected, depending on the story. But the standard behaviour of the stool is to show in plan the cut range defined in 3D by the cutting box or polygonal cut.

The second point is partially achieved by the ability to create cloud cuts, as both the performance is better when removing the extra points and it makes it easier to see only the hotspots of the are you are modelling at the moment.

Most of the suggestions mentioned in your third point are not achievable with the current implementation of the GDL pointcloud command, but certainly could be explored in conjunction with Graphisoft development team.