How Can You Look at a Point Cloud?
You can view a point cloud with a free 3D viewer. Depending on the file format you want to look at,
you’ll need an appropriate viewer. These are our free favorites:
Hardware Requirements for Visualization
Point clouds can consist of millions of points. Therefore, a powerful computer is needed to visualize
large point clouds. Point clouds have a very raw character since they are only a collection of points in
the coordinate system. With a 3D viewer, the 3D object appears half-transparent because you can
look through the captured points.
How Are Point Clouds Processed Further?
Depending on the application, point clouds are filtered, for example, to extract points with specific
parameters. In most cases, however, point clouds are converted into a polygon mesh. There are
many names for this conversion, such as “meshing” or “polygonization”.
The conversion of a point cloud into a polygon mesh can be done by running software that connects
all the points to form a mesh of triangles (polygons). The converted file is then exported in the STL
file format. If colors are present in the point cloud, they can be output as a color map (file format for
color: OBJ + JPEG).
What Are Some Point Cloud File Formats?
The simplest file format for a point cloud is XYZ. It stores all points as (XYZ) values in a huge text file
(ASCII text format). This file format is advantageous because it can always be read and is, therefore,
future proof.
A big disadvantage of the XYZ format is that colors, intensity and vectors are not stored. Due to this
limitation of parameters, much information is lost.
Therefore, many 3D scanners and software companies have created their own point cloud format to
store the data more efficiently.
Here are some relevant open point cloud file formats:
- *.xyz
- *.ply
- *.las
- *.e57
- *.pts
Conclusion
Point clouds are the first elementary step in digitizing an object. The point cloud represents the
measured values of the 3D scanner in a raw form. Based on this information, further steps can be
taken depending on the application.
Do you need help with the processing of a point cloud?
Holocreators offers professional 3D-scanning and reverse engineering services. We specialize in the
creation and processing of point clouds. We’d love to help you with your project. Please call us at +49 40 481133 or send an email info@holocreators.com
