Merge aligned projects without changing orientations

[mika_jahkola]

Say, you have two Recap projects that are covering adjacent areas (two floors of a building, or the inside/outside of a building).

Both projects are registered separately and aligned to previously measured control points. The control points are in the same coordinate system.

Then, you want to merge the projects into one, keeping the orientation of each scan within the projects intact.

Currently this is not possible with Recap.

If you import the project 2 to project 1, Recap will lose the orientation of project 2, and you will have to register the projects together by picking two adjacent scans. Recap does not care about the already set control points of project 2.
The re-registration produces the side effect that each scan's orientation will be touched

The same happens if you create a completely new project, and import project 1 and project 2 into it.

After importing the projects, Recap gives you the alternatives a) automatic registration b) manual registration c) skip registration.

It appears that there is a bug in "skip registration".

The expected behavior of "skip registration" would be that each scan is left in the orientation that they had before importing.

Now each registration group is left in some random orientation that does not match the control points they may have had before.

My suggestion is: Recap projects shall retain their original orientation when imported, and "skip registration" shall just merge the projects without changing the orientation of any scans.

[fpensa]

Hi @mika_jahkola, could you have a look at the problem I'm having and confirm that it's a similar issue?

"I have two structured cloudpoint which "touch" each other in three points (not in the same scan). I create three survey points in the first cloudpoint using his own coordinates, then I pick the same points in the second cloudpoint and use the coordinates of the first cloudpoint for those survey points.

Now I merge this two Recap project, skip the registration and I would expect the two clouds ending up at the right position (the three common points), but that's not what it happens..."

[mika_jahkola]

Helli fpensa, I think we both see excactly the same problem.

[mika_jahkola]

I think I found a solution. The trick is to import rcs files and not rcp files to the new project.

1. create project 1, import the raw scans (fls etc.), and attach survey control points to some scan during registration. Close project 1.

2. create project 2, import the raw scans (fls etc.), and attach survey control points to some scan during registration. Close project 2.

    You don't have to use shared control points in project 1 and project 2, but all control points must of course be in the same coordinate system.

3. create project 3, import the rcs files of every scan from the folders  "project 1 Support" and "project 2 Support". Skip registration.

Now your composite project 3 should contain all scans from projects 1 and 2 in the correct orientation.

4. save project 3 (Save As..) with a new name, let's call it project 4.

The reason for step 4 is that the support folder "project 3 support" is very small and it does not contain the scan files, but it refers back to "project 1 Support" and "project 2 support". This makes things complicated if you want to deliver your recap project to someone else.

"project 4 Support" on the other hand, contains all the scan files (rcs), so the combination "project 4.rcp" + "project 4 Support" contains all the data and should be transferable.

Please note that I have no design information of Recap, so this solution may be general, or it could be just accidental. Your comments are very much appreciated..

[fpensa]

Hi @mika_jahkola, I've tried the workflow, but it didn't work for me... All the scans are messed up and not aligned at all...