Point cloud - Too many points

[Anonymous]

I may have pushed the limits of how many cloud files to import in a blank ARCHICAD file in attempts to find a workflow on how to use them.

There was a total of 8 files e57 with roughly 10GB of Data. Are xyz files better?

I made an independent layer for each scans so I can turn it on and off easily, however I wanted to test to see what would happen when all are on and open the 3D view. In case I didn't know ARCHICAD and turned everything on.

The file just became unusable as it was in a permanent frozen state, or may take 20 minutes or more to respond, this was expected....

Are there better ways to manipulate the information besides layer management?

Is there a way to disable Turning on all layers, or specific layers?

I was thinking I could make a renovation status for each scans and use the pin option for each scan. See attachment.

Other thoughts on what others are doing would be greatly appreciated...

[Frank Beister]

Thanks for the reply. I will have a look on it. Sounds very helpful.

[Da3dalus]

Using ArchiCAD 21, I'm just finally getting into some Point Clouds. Unfortunately, the first attempts have been riddled with problems. Too many points is the big one, and I'm going to try CloudCompare.

Besides that, the first XYZ files we received had no RGB data, just XYZ. ArchiCAD is pick and won't accept that. The next file had no .XYZ extension, and in the Mac, there's a less-than-obvious trick to adding useful file extensions. Then the Surveyor added the color, but the file was comma-delimited. ArchiCAD only recognizes space or tab-delimited. After all that, still too big.

By the way, I have opened these files in a text editor. I use TextWrangler on the Mac. FYI, a 600 MB XYZ file has about 18 million points. That might be a useful ratio: about 30,000 points per MB.

I have no idea what the optimum size for ArchiCAD is, especially with the 16 GB ceiling on most Macs. It would be useful for GS to publish.

[Da3dalus]

CloudCompare is they key to making point clouds work!

I was able to easily open the file, and after fiddling for a bit, I resampled the resolution and previewed several settings, settled on 1,000,000 points, saved back into XYZ, and changed it to space-delimited, just like ArchiCAD wants it. Works like a dream!

I think I can do more than a million, but that will need some experimentation.

[ruivenda]

Hi all.

I'm using point clouds in AC since AC20, with some nice results and a good workflow to follow. I will explain how I use them.

First I do the site job - laser scanning and then point cloud registering - normally the surveyor does that.

Then I ask for an e57/xyz file with all the information available. In these case I have the full resolution of the point cloud in order to mesure it or evaluate it further. Here there are several pieces of free software to evaluate these things - Recap, Leica, Faro, or even Cloud Compare (the one I personally use). Recap files are also good, because they have those 360 photos so we can work and evaluate things from the photo and not from the point cloud itself.

Normally I get very big files, with 20GB, 50GB or even 85GB. These files contains all the information, unfiltered so we can evaluate them. Cloud Compare can struggle with files that big, but there are alternatives, and in last resort I ask for a file that will be a little bit smaller, so I can open it in CloudCompare and work with it.

In CloudCompare I'll do 4 things:

• fuse all the individual scans, that come with the xyz/e57 file, in order to get rid of the comum points and get a file a little bit smaller just by that.

[list=2]

then I delete all the information that is not needed, like far surroundings and other information that is irrelevant to the job to be done.

[list=3]

then I try to level the point cloud by a known level ground plane - sometimes it's tricky but is very easy to get it done, by selecting 3 points defining a horizontal plane.

[list=4]

last I prepare the file to import to AC, subsampling it. I first subsample the file to 1mm density, that for a 5mm density, then to 10mm density and so on until I get a file around 1GB of file size

With that done, I manage to import the point cloud into AC, with a reasonable file size and responsiveness that allow me to develop the 3d modeling process into AC.

In AC I use plan region settings in the point cloud to make several heights in floor plan - normally small bands of 100mm thick is all we need at a good height. And for sections and elevations the trick is the same: small depths, so we can see "lines" instead of a lot of noise that do not help modeling the building.

Yes is a process that is time consuming but at least we manage to use point clouds in AC in a way that is helping and not disturbing. If the subsampled file lost valuable information, I get back to CloudCompare, section a little bit of a higher density point cloud and export just that little bit of the cloud, and then import just that fragment to AC, on top of the previous one, or on top of the already modeled part of the building, and so on.

My main complain is that AC22 somehow is worst that AC21 handling point clouds in section and elevation. I don't find out why, but in AC21 I get all the cross section straight and in AC22 the very same section only displays half of the point cloud, so I do not get the proper section to work. For that reason, and because time do not stop I'm using AC21 to get the job with the clouds done, and then shift to AC22 to get the best AC yet.

I had tested other workflows, like PointCAB and other tools, but I think that they are even more time consuming, and all lacks the "Architect evaluation eyes" to get the things that really matter in these solutions.

Hope it help. I'de spoken about these workflow in AC Summer School in Lisbon... 😉

[Daniel Kovacs]

ruivenda wrote:
...
My main complain is that AC22 somehow is worst that AC21 handling point clouds in section and elevation. I don't find out why, but in AC21 I get all the cross section straight and in AC22 the very same section only displays half of the point cloud, so I do not get the proper section to work. For that reason, and because time do not stop I'm using AC21 to get the job with the clouds done, and then shift to AC22 to get the best AC yet.
...

Hi,

First of all, neat workflow tips, I like it!

The issue you mentioned about ARCHICAD 22 is something we are aware of, and we want to fix it in our next update (AC22 50xx). You will find it as fix #250366 in our Release Note.

As far as we know this only happen on macOS. If you turn off the 2D Drawing Hardware Acceleration in the Work Environment (or sometimes it is enough to just set it lower), the Point Cloud should appear properly - though that should make things slower.

Regards,