C3D 2018 Create Point Cloud no longer supported?

[Neilw_05]

It appears we can no longer create Point Clouds within Civil 3D as of 2018 release. The workflow now is to use Recap to create the cloud and then attach it to C3D. I tried to create a Point Cloud in Recap using the 3 Elevation formats available from the National Map (Grid, Float and IMG). None of these formats are supported in Recap. So what is the workflow to get the elevation data sets into C3D? I know we can add a grid file to a surface in C3D but we need to filter the data first to make the resulting surface usable. 

[ksorsby]

Absolutely. Having now used Recap I can see it is a much more capable engine and seems great for bringing datasets in and displaying them but just doesn't have many basic functions. It's clunky, selection limited, navigating confusing and the inability to import polylines, shapefiles etc. is a major omission. It also is critically missing being able to import background linework or imagery.
I've used it on a scheme several 10's of kms wide with numerous large models in C3D and it kind of works but just feels like it's missing lots of things thereby adding extra steps to your workflow - unfortunately going in the direction of Infraworks.
Get the functionality sorted and it could be a winner.

[Neilw_05]

There are certainly more robust cloud processing tools out there vs Recap. If you are forced to use an app outside of C3D it may be a better choice to use something other than recap. I have ben using CloudCompare which is hyper fast for processing large datasets. It will load a 30 million point cloud in about 30 seconds.

You can import shapefiles, dxf and many other formats for context, clipping etc.

[Kevin.Spear]

Completely agree. Recap may not be the best option for cloud processing. I use Leica’s cyclone products myself.

However, you still need an RCS or RCP generally to use the data in the Autodesk world. Some of those external apps can write to those formats. Others cannot. So some knowledge of recap is required to consume in infra works for instance.

[ksorsby]

For me, I had no issues with the performance of Recap but the functionality of it is pretty low.

[Neilw_05]

Recap performance for me has been horrendous. Maybe it is the size of the point clouds I am using. I can't tolerate the processing times. 

[Neilw_05]

I just use the points I get from the processed point cloud to build a surface. I don't see a need for an RCS or RCP file. Am I missing something?

Well I suppose if you want to render the point cloud using the attributes you would want a recap file. I don't typically do renderings and I don't use infraworks. If I needed to do that I would probably preprocess and filter the cloud before bringing it into Recap.

[dodgese2]

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@TerryDotson wrote:

... not happy with the latest workflow. Recap does not support National GIS formats (Grid, Float & IMG) ...

And it shouldn't.  Trying to shove a GRID into Recap is like shoving an orange into an apple peeler and complaining about it.  Download LAS (unordered points) from the USGS and Recap will be happy to digest it.

I just wanted to add, QGIS has LAStools as an add-on.

If you're sticking with grids, download the ArcGrid format and Civil3D should create a DEM directly from the contained ADF file.  Make sure your machine has adequate resources as in lots of RAM and mostly lots of (fast drive) temp file space.

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