Laser Scanning – The Point Cloud
You may have heard the mystical term of the point cloud and wondering what it was referring too? Well, wonder no more.
The point cloud is the data file resulting from a 3D laser scan and is the information that all other deliverables are created from. The point cloud serves as a digital record of the site. CMS Surveyors can provide this in a number of formats including Leica Trueview (viewed in Internet Explorer), Autodesk’s Recap Format (for use in Revit, 3DS Max and AutoCad) and a number of others.
The point cloud can be viewed from the location it was collected. Measurements can be taken directly from the point cloud. Using Recap, Autocad’s free point cloud viewing software, users can interactively move through the point cloud and explore and measure the site as if they were actually there. This allows the user to explore the site in real time, checking views, measuring features and getting a feel for the scale, colours and materials of the surveyed features.
The point cloud data is the final ‘truth’ but unfortunately file sizes are usually huge and getting the most out of the information generally requires a great deal of experience with specialty software. Fortunately, CMS Surveyors have the expertise to create a variety of products from the point cloud we collect.
