So I don't know if this will help anyone, but I wanted to give some more feedback regarding my workflow and what I've found to work. We create diagrams of auto accidents and have the need to scan individual vehicles as well as entire roadway scenes. We use a Leica BLK360.
1. For vehicles: These scan projects involve about 6 scans. The project is opened in Leica's Cyclone software where a quick removal of points outside of the vehicle itself is completed. The cloud is then exported as an RCP file. In Autocad, this RCP file is imported and typically used for creating a dimensionally-accurate DXF block of the involved vehicle. This is fast and easy.
2. For scenes: These projects can easily have 10-20 scan locations and exceed 12GB. The intent is to bring these clouds into Autocad and 'trace' over them to build a 2D plan-view CAD file. In order to do this, the cloud needs to be examined from multiple angles and many objects obstruct our view. This includes trees and fences and especially noise from vehicles that have driven through the scene.
We use Recap to break off sections of the roadside into separate regions. We also break up the roadway into further regions and 'scrub' each section of the vehicle noise. In total, we would like to have 3-5 scan regions. But I think Recap stores every fenced and windowed area that I create as part of the RCP file. Initial RCP files that begin as 4KB become hundreds or thousands of KB as points are simply deleted. So while the RCS file itself gets smaller, the RCP file grows and eventually drags the program to a near halt. And once you begin to see that slowdown, it's pretty much too late. Decimating the point cloud doesn't seem to make enough of a difference because again, it seems like it's the selection sets that cause the problem, not the size of the point cloud.
Regardless... If the scene is small and there is not a lot of noise, we can use Recap without issue. However, we CANNOT use it for medium to larger scene scans. So what we do is this: Export an E57 file from Cyclone, OPEN THE FILE IN CLOUDCOMPARE, merge all of the separate scan stations into one cloud, break that cloud apart into the equivalent of regions, clean those regions, then save the E57 file. That file can then be brought into Recap, decimated and saved as an RCP file. This resulting end product does not slow down at all in Autocad.
Having spent far too many hours on this, that is the best I've come up with. I'm open to suggestions for improving our workflow.
______________________________________________________________________
Windows 10 Pro, Intel Xeon E5-2630v4, 48GB, NVIDIA Quadro M4000
