Scan-to-Mesh Alternative Workflow?

[donovanEER9K]

Hi,

My company purchased a license for Recap Pro in order to import BLK360 LiDAR scan point clouds and convert them into meshes for use in Maya/C4D. Unfortunately, as of version 5.0.3.58, those features have been pulled.

Could you please recommend an alternate workflow for converting our scan data into a polygon mesh (ideally with textures projected from the photospheres)?

Thank you,

Donovan

[anikakramer2006]

I have the same question. I also have a problem with ReCap Photo. No chance to sign in into my autodesk account I've tried it several times

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@donovanEER9K wrote:

Hi,

My company purchased a license for Recap Pro in order to import BLK360 LiDAR scan point clouds and convert them into meshes for use in Maya/C4D. Unfortunately, as of version 5.0.3.58, those features have been pulled.

Could you please recommend an alternate workflow for converting our scan data into a polygon mesh (ideally with textures projected from the photospheres)?

Thank you,

Donovan

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[anil_mistry · Accepted solution]

Hi @donovanEER9K,

Thank you for participating in our Community! Please see the accepted solution from this post for more information. Let me know if this helps. 

Thank you and have a great day

[donovanEER9K]

@anil_mistry Thank you for the response! I eventually found that post as well.

While certainly not as full-featured as what I see in the promo videos for the Scan-to-Mesh feature, using Cloud Compare's meshing tools worked reasonably well (as originally shared in Jayson Sterba's post):

One of my colleagues was also able to take an E57 into Houdini and mesh it.

Both of the above solutions seem to create Iso Surfaces (kind of like Metaballs) - which means that flat planes look inflated and distorted. In the end I just remodeled based on the Point Cloud in C4D as I didn't need absolute precision for my purposes.

Thanks!

[freedom1k]

I've been a long advocate for autdesk products. We adopted Recap mostly for its Meshing capabilities. Why does Autodesk develop tools only to discontinue them? It was great in Momento which became ReMake that then split meshing into RecapPhoto/Recap. Now the meshing tool is gone from autodesk altogether. Will a PointCloud to Mesh feature be available in any Autodesk product? Would love to know, or otherwise it's back to Geomagic for this need. :)

[BoydJones_BIM]

Autodesk does this to learn and collect data from it's users. This was never about creating a helpful tool for them. 

What they will now do with the collected data is create a new product that we will all have to pay a premium for. They could've easily kept this feature within Recap and improved it over the years, which would've helped its end users tremendously. This is just another cash grab and a way for Autodesk to nickel and dime us.

[istan]

 I just downloaded the ReCap_60121 version for testing the meshing capabilities. Does it then even make sense to install it?

[freedom1k]

no need. you can not mesh with Recap anymore. I wish they would bring it back.

[istan]

Thanks! Setupfile deleted. I.e. AD is not able to provide the most necessary workflow.

It would make more sense to me, if the Leica scanner would be bundled with MeshLab..

[andyp7]

AutoDesk also strips out normal data from Recap on export. So the nice normals the LIDAR scanner gives you need to be recomputed. Which is hit or miss.

[tristan.zerafa]

Insane for Autodesk to remove this feature... 

[SEAAutodesk]

It was a great tool.. luckily we have Faro Scene, and GeoMagic, both does a decent job at meshing point-clouds. expensive though.

[SzyKo]

I would go a little bit further and say - shait for brains, hahahaha...