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Decimate without losing mirror balls

Decimate without losing mirror balls

I'd really like to decimate a point cloud and keep it as a structured file.

Perhaps make an option to remove a certain percentage of the points or allow the decimation grid to work internally in the file.

I don't like creating a unified scan, losing my mirror balls in the process, just to get rid of half my points.

I like another person's idea of decimating by region.

12 Comments
MarcZinck
Alumni

Hi Lyle,

 

Thank your for the input. We have heard similar request and will certainly consider your contribution when assessing the priority of this type of feature.

 

Could you provide a little more color regarding when it would be appropriate to switch from a configuration where each scan can be individually manipulated, to one where the scans are unified or decimated (while preserving RealViews)? Are you doing registration in ReCap? How about point cleanup? What kind of deliverable are you generating, and how are you using RealViews in contrast to to 3D View?

 

There exists a workflow which approximates your request.

1) Export your project as a unified rcs at the decimation level of your choice.

2) Select and delete all of the points in your original project (from 3D view).

3) Save the project and select the optimize option.

4) run the Save As.. command and save the project to a new location - and select the "Remove Points" option <- this is the critical step

5) Move the unified rcs created in step 1 to the support folder from the new project in step 4.

6) Import the unified rcs into the new project by dragging it from the file explorer onto ReCap - Skip registration when importing.

 

Your new project should contain RCS's for the original scans which are significantly smaller then the original RCS's. Note - after save as - some of the temporary cache files such as RealViews will need to be recreated - this will manifest itself as an "updating cache" spinner when you switch to a realview that does not have an updated cache entry.

 

I just ran the workflow on a small test project:

Original Input: 2 color fls scans - total size -141 MB

ReCap Project Size: 576 MB

Unified RCS at 5mm: 342 MB

Project Size after Delete, Save, Optimize, Save As.. with Remove Points: 107MB

New Project Size: 449MB

 

The new project is 78% of the original and space saving increase rapidly with more scans due to the redundancy of data in areas of overlap.

 

I performed the same test, this time with 4 scans from the same dataset.

Original ReCap project size:1.15GB

New ReCap Project Size: 561MB - 47% of the original.

 

Let me know if you have success with the above workaround. We are actively looking for input regarding requirement for making this an official, and streamlined workflow. Your feedback is greatly appreciated.

 

Thank you,

Marc

 

Marc Zinck

Software Development Manager

Autodesk - ReCap

LyleHardin
Advisor

Thanks for the comments and workflow suggestions.

I'm looking forward to trying it. Our projects typically contain 30-80 scan locations.

It would still be nice to be able to delete 50% of the points or perform a decimation via grid method within a registered ReCap file.

 

We are doing the registration with ReCap. The files are .fls folders from a Faro Scanner.

 

I'll sometimes run the cloud based cleanup from ReCap Pro. It does a reasonable job of getting rid of 'ghosts' walking and driving around.

We seldom use the point cloud in our deliverables. They are mainly our existing conditions for our design process. We do heavy industrial engineering typically installing large conveyors or machinery in power plants and other large, dark, open yet crowded areas with lots of steel and piping.

 

We have found great value using the recent ReCap capability of showing a 3D model (Navisworks .nwd file) in the Real View. This has been great to check our work and to show the client.

mlabell
Advocate

@LyleHardin

Check out this video on how to decimate into unified scans and retain the mirror balls.  Bit of a hack but this has worked for us for the past 7 months.  You would need to export regions and decimate them prior what you see in video 2.

LyleHardin
Advisor

@mlabell

Thanks for the suggestion, but Is there a link to the video?

mlabell
Advocate
vidanom
Autodesk
Status changed to: Under Review
 
LyleHardin
Advisor

I'm now trying the 6 step method MarkZinck suggested.

When I get to step 6, ReCap tells me the .rcs file will be written over, then goes into registration mode. I followed through with registration, but got a red ring around the .rcs file and in the final product, my mirror balls were not in the right spot.

How do I skip registration? Or is that still possible with the latest version (4)?

On the bright side, if it works, it looks like my 80 scan setup file might go from 65 Gig to about 14 Gig.

This would be fantastic if we can trim our files down like this. Especially for Revit.

 

 

mlabell
Advocate
We typically will have all unified point clouds in a folder called Reference. This is for referencing into all design apps by themselves since RCP support varies in Autodesk apps. Once you delete all the original points and do a saved as import he files from this directory (can be named anything) just make sure it is outside of the SUPPORT folder that is created by ReCap. This will prevent the issue you are having.
LyleHardin
Advisor

I originally tried that with the .rcs outside of the Support folder.

I still had to register which throws off my mirror balls.

So I'm still not doing something right.

How do I skip registration? I think that's what's messing my final product up.

mlabell
Advocate

If you hoover over registration there is an option to Skip Registration.

LyleHardin
Advisor

Oh My Gosh... Are you kidding me?!

I've hovered over that a hundred times and I've seen Manual Registration and was just completely blind to the Skip option. I probably assumed it was Automatic registration or something.

I can't believe it...

 

Thanks,

Signed: Feeling stupid in St. Louis.

mlabell
Advocate

I mentioned it because many of users have had the same exact issue so I have seen it a few times before...  Glad that worked out for you and best of luck with the 'compression technique'.  This has helped us with replicating our point cloud projects across 15+ offices with transmitting significantly less data.  Our transfer rate now that all offices are in sync is typically one project (ave size 40 GB compressed) to all offices overnight, whereas with previous method we were only getting 50%-70% of the data, and some offices were laggards because of bandwidth capacity which has been addressed.

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