Point cloud visualization

[Anonymous]

We've imported .las point cloud to Recap - and the model looks great in Recap. Great detail from every angle.

After exporting from Recap and attaching the .rcs in Inventor the visual representation of the point cloud is majorly degraded. For the point cloud to have the visual quality of anything resembling the one of Recap we have to rotate the point cloud in Inventor to a very specific point of view angle.

Rotating it at all away from that given point of view or zooming in makes the points invisible it seems. It is as if the points are represented as 2D surfaces oriented in a given direction in contrast to 3D cubes or spheres that one can see from any angle. 

The export from Recap is verified ok as we've opened the export file in Recap again - and the point cloud looks great there.  

Any suggestions?

[Ruffy85]

Hi Bjorn,

welcome in the Forum.

when you attach your Pointcloud into Inventor, you have the Pointcloud on your mouse, when you click in the Drawing Area a new Window pops up.

What´s your preferences by Density and max. Points? Check that you have set there the maximum.

Otherwise we need some screenshots, to see where you problem is. Do you have openend the Pointcloud in Navisworks or Autocad? Do you use clipping boxes? Which Version of Inventor you are using?

[Anonymous]

Thanks for reply!

Yes - we're importing the maximum density and amount of points. As stated in my initial post - I can see a very detailed representation of the points when aligning the model in a very specific horizontal and vertical angle - but as soon as I rotate the model the slightes points seems to vanish. The more I rotate the model the less I see until the whole model is almost invisible at 90degrees rotation from the initial "sweet spot".



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[Ruffy85]

Sounds like that some points arent in the Pointcloud. But you said, when you reimport in Recap you see the model as you wish. Hm...

you are sure you are using the .rcs File which has full amount of Points for your whole Modell? and not the .rcp File? When you are using Rcp File. check that all .rcs Files are included. If you use rcs Files. Be sure that all rcs FIles for you complete model are imported. Which Graphic card you are using?

[dgorsman]

I don't use point clouds in Inventor, but with very large numbers of points in AutoCAD the point cloud has to be regen'd from time to time to update the display to the current view.  Navisworks does its own dynamic regeneration based on the view location.  Not certain if that's what's happening here or if there's even an option for that.

Navisworks and ReCap can work in voxels rather than points, which can make it easier to see the points.  Again, I'm not certain if there's such an option in Inventor.

[Anonymous]

See attached pictures. I note that in the attach dialog box I get 0 points attached - but when I go ahead with the displayed settings the point cloud is attached as seen in the pictures. When I open the same .rcs in Recap Iit looks much better and I can rotate the cloud in any dimension.

Attach dialog box

Best view


approx 10 degrees horisontal rotation to right


more rotation


even more rotation

same .rsc in Recap

[sybold]

having the same problems, when zooming in the points will disappear. would be nice to view the pointcloud with the same level of detail as in recap.

[Anonymous]

Looks like this isn't fixed in Inventor Pro 2018 either.  Horrible support from Autodesk here.

[johnsonshiue]

Hi Adam,

Did you contact Autodesk Product Support? When did you submit the issue and what is the case ID? Our support staff just reported a similar issue and there seems to be a way to make it better by opening the file in ReCap. I will get more information and replay back here.

Many thanks!

[Anonymous]

Johnson, thanks for the quick reply.  I don't have a support ticket in but I do have the exact same thing happening.  I am new to Inventor and confused why the Recap file doesn't import the same as in AutoCAD.

[kelly.young]

Hello @Anonymous I'm by no means an expert with ReCap but I've used it to map some things with my Mavic Pro and brought into Inventor pretty well.

What format are you exporting as? Does it have to be .rcs?

I exported all of the options available and if memory serves I found .obj to work best for me when bringing to Inventor.

Again, not my area of expertise just something I mess with but wondering if there is a better way to export and bring in?

 

[helge_brettschneider]

Hi all,
the issue here seams to be a problem of the point cloud origin in Autodesk Recap. I had a similar situation here, when I zoom out I could see the point could appearing, but when I came closer, the distance between the cloud points seam to large and in a specific zoom distance it looks stripe alignment of the points.

In Inventor you can not do much adjustments and you have to keep in mind that Inventor has his point cloud limits  (100m x 100m x 100m). To get the point alignment right, you need to adjust the origin in Recap as described in the AKN article below.

 Inventor Point cloud:  Stripes instead of point cloud

Side note: Depending of the Recap version, you may have to add a further step, because on newer versions (newer than 4.0.0.28) you need to use the tabulator key on your keyboard to activate the alignment function. Then just press "return" to except the origin where it is located in the graphic area. After that save the rcs file and you are good to go importing it in a new Inventor file.

Let me know if this procedure helps to improve your representation of the point cloud in Inventor.

Regards,
Helge

[Anonymous]

Helge,

I did a lot of searching and never ran into that article, thank you for the information.  That has fixed the displaying of the point cloud in Inventor, many thanks again.

[helge_brettschneider]

Great, I am glad that it helps to improve your situation. Yes, you are right the title is too focused on a particular representation. I have to do a refurbishment of the article next week. I keep you posted!

—Helge

[James_Ritorto]

Having the exact stripes issue presented.

If this is the issue, is there a work another simple around that does not involve moving the origin?

We currently need the scan data in world co-ordinates to line up with existing survey data. Additionally using the world co-ordinate system helps with our project being worked withing multiple drawing packages.

[johnsonshiue]

Hi! Inventor has a fixed valid model space (+-100m in X, Y, and Z) in a part. When the geometry is located outside of the range, modeling commands can fail. I think you do need to relocate the pointcloud to the origin within the part. Then you can position the part in an assembly far away from assembly origin.

Many thanks!