Scanning in VR

Now that you have your point cloud data, you may wish to render it in VR. The following steps highlight the process.

 

1. Cropout your point cloud data using the AutoDesk Recap. 

2. After you have cropped it to your satisfaction, export the model as an e57 file.

3. Import the saved e57 file into cloudcompare, ensure the RGB colors are selected.

4. If the e57 consist of multiple scans, select the various clouds and merge them.

5. Once you have a single unified point cloud export the file to a .pts format.

6. Import the saved .pts file into cloud compare and export it as  .las file, ensure that RGB color channel is set.

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1. You might be wondering the following two questions-

   1. Why not export .pts file directly from Recap?  - Recap fails to export Normals, this is known issue , refer - https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/recap-forum/pts-export-stripping-out-normal-values/td-p/4943596.

   2. Why not export e57 to .las directly? E57 operates on merged point cloud, this fails to extract color to las. Rather by converting to pts, we are preserving the Normals. This ensures the RGB & Alpha channels are intact. 

2. Step 6 is specific to the Unreal Point Cloud plugin. Incase you are using the PCx plugin for unity export the file as a .ply.

 

Unreal Point Cloud Plugin - https://pointcloudplugin.com/

Unity Point Cloud Plugin - https://github.com/keijiro/Pcx