topic Re: Optimising problem in ReCap Forum

Optimising problem

n_mccullough — Mon, 04 Apr 2016 10:04:35 GMT

After spending ages deleting unwanted points, when I save the project and choose to optimise it, all the deleted points reappear, rendering any cleanup work I've done wasted. I realise this option to optimise a prject is still relatively new, but is this a bug in the software?

I'm using version 3.0.0.52.

Re: Optimising problem

Anonymous — Mon, 04 Apr 2016 11:12:40 GMT

http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/recap-general-discussion/delted-points-show-up-in-autocad/td-p/6231508

Re: Optimising problem

n_mccullough — Mon, 04 Apr 2016 11:18:48 GMT

Thanks Jason, I already seen this thread but my issue is somewhat different. I was under the impression that Autodesk added this optimisation feature in an attempt to speed up the project after deleting points. However, if allowing the project to be optimised means the deleted points are back, then what was the point in adding the feature in the first place?

Exporting as a unified RCS file is a poor workaround at best, and I've been using this method since we started working with points clouds a few years ago. However, doing this means that you lose the ability to control the behaviour of individual scans, because now all I would have is 1 big scan for the entire project.

Re: Optimising problem

ryan.frenz — Mon, 04 Apr 2016 12:58:01 GMT

Are the points coming back in ReCap - or just in other products like AutoCAD? If you see the issue in ReCap, this is likely because you also have the project loaded in another application like AutoCAD. This causes the optimization to fail. We've added a check for this in the latest hotfix (3.0.1.5).

If you only see the points in AutoCAD or Revit, you'll need to 'Save As' to remove the optimized points first. A bit of background:

There are now three 'levels' to how you can clean up a project:

1. The normal way - select points, delete them, repeat. This stores each operation just in the RCP file. When points are loaded from disk, each is compared against the operations and hidden if necessary. This can get slow as multiple overlapping selections are deleted.

2. 'Optmized' - upon saving, ReCap can optionally check each point against each operation and 'mark' it on disk. Once this is done, there is no need to keep the operations in the RCP like 1) above. ReCap can then very quicky show or hide each point instead of the costly checks.

3. Removing points on Save As - when you save a new copy of the project, ReCap can remove each deleted point. This effectively 'shrinks' each RCS file and the deleted points can never come back. As with 2), the operations can then be removed from the RCP.

Method 1 has been supported in AutoCAD/etc forever. Method 3 is supported by default since the points are simply gone. Method 2 however requires new engine support which will only make it into the other products in 2017. For compatibility with older products, you'll need to stick with 1) or 3) above.

Hope this helps,

Ryan

Re: Optimising problem

n_mccullough — Mon, 04 Apr 2016 13:23:35 GMT

Ryan, thanks for your reply, I can't believe it was so simple. I had it loaded in a Revit project I'm working on. And When I shut down Revit and ran the optimisation, the points didn't reappear.

Just for reference, yeah the points were reappearing in Recap.

However, I've now run into a new problem, which may be related. When I reload the point cloud file in Revit, it still shows up as "not loaded". I removed it and tried to load it in from scratch but I keep getting an error saying: Unable to create a Point Cloud instance. The file may be an incompatible format or corrupt.

Re: Optimising problem

ryan.frenz — Tue, 05 Apr 2016 14:19:59 GMT

Hard to say what's causing that without seeing the project. What version of Revit? There are a few known connection issues I can check against.

Ryan

Re: Optimising problem

n_mccullough — Tue, 05 Apr 2016 14:23:57 GMT

Hi Ryan,

It's Revit 2016 but I've since export it as a unified RCS file and imported it and it worked fine. It's not really an ideal solution as I've lost the individuality of each scan, but I should be able to live with it. Thanks anyway.