Hi all,
First time here. I usually do visualizations so I tend to hang out over in the viz. section.. :)
How would I go about exporting our CAD design to a pointcloud for visualization purposes?
Thanks,Torben
p.s. I made a thread over at viz also, but no one is biting: http://communities.bentley.com/products/microstation/microstation_visualization/f/19754/t/104011. Sorry for double posting, I promise to link the two threads once I get a solution.
Hi Torben,
Unknown said:How would I go about exporting our CAD design to a pointcloud for visualization purposes?
May I ask why? ... Well, I read your explanation in your parallel post.
I am pretty sure there is no such functionality available in any Bentley product now and don't think it's something investigated for a future development.
From a technical point of it can be done. But definitely not using VBA, it requires native code and a use of MicroStationAPI and/or MDL API. Your idea about meshing is probably right, but the overall task is quite huge: Not all object can be meshed, so you have to find a proper approach for different types of elements, in the next step to calculate points coordinates, interpolate a proper color for the point (which is not a color of the applied material at these coordinates) and add hte point to the point cloud file.
There are things like lights, transparency etc. which I guess cannot be converted into point clouds.
With regards,
Jan
Bentley Accredited Developer: iTwin Platform - AssociateLabyrinth Technology | dev.notes() | cad.point
Hi Jan,
Unknown said:May I ask why? ... Well, I read your explanation in your parallel post.
As you read, It's all about production speed.
I am into making informational movies on fairly large projects (100's of miles of infrastructure) and I get loads upon loads of finished 3d models from entreprenuers, entreprenerurs the designers, ready to use but fairly large. I also have access to highly detailed pointclouds of the surroundings.
Rendering Hollywood style movies in microStation is - to my knowledge - not feasible at all. No rendering using external farms, and a render time of minutes pr. frame. Even with a super fast mediocre render setup I have been unable to get below 10 seconds/frame.
With pointclouds I can export with around 1.2 seconds per frame! (Then I can do minutes of finished movie per workday! instead of seconds.) Also I suspect the pointcloud solution can be expanded to some sort of realtime visualization solution in the near future. I have not investigated this but I read about a Unity3D asset that handles about 65K points.. No al we need is a dynamic loading solution and voila, VR glory ahoy :)
Unknown said:Not all object can be meshed, so you have to find a proper approach for different types of elements, in the next step to calculate points coordinates, interpolate a proper color for the point (which is not a color of the applied material at these coordinates) and add hte point to the point cloud file..
I haven't seen a solid or shape that couldn't be turned into a mesh yet? Lines don't need to be mesh-ified obviously but they are really easy to turn into a pointcloud anyways. Just walk along and save a coordinate each 10cm or whatever.
Getting a color from a texture should be fairly easy assuming I use something like a cubemapping or top down projection and depend solely on world coordinates. Shadows I have no idea on achieving (unless I actually code a shoot a load of random rays from each found point away from the surface to see if anything is blocking the sun), but I guess I could sort of light the points using the mesh normal and a spherical global illumination environment bitmap. I don't need very detailed lights I need this to blend with an existing pointcloud showing exterior only.
I don't believe a working solution is that far off, IF someone decided to make it that is :)
System: Win7 64bit 16GB Ram - microStation V8i SS3 08.11.09.578. + PoinTools CONNECT. - Intel i7-4800MQ CPU@2.70GHz, 4 core / 8 Logic proc.
Vincent RAULT [Bentley]
Unknown said:Either 2 ways : meshes will move to point clouds or point clouds to Meshes.
Hi,
I cannot get export from pointcloud to 3d model going. I tried:
I used cloudcompare (or a similar free product) to make a mesh from a pointcloud a long, long time ago (a few years), but as far as I remember it did not carry any colors across. Should I dig this up again, perhaps they did or do now offer color export, or will poinTools come to my aid in getting a colored mesh (or whatever) for use for visualizations (as backdrop for designs) in microStation?
Or perhaps I should take another route all together to achieve a decent backdrop for my "fly-around while lots of animation is going on movie"?
I should probably investigate rendering the 3D-models directly inside pointools, but I need the divine luxology lighting and materials as this is a higher profile animation, that actually has alot of animation going, also of materials, and must look "Hollywood".
Hi Torben
To export a colored point cloud from a mesh (OBJ) right clic on Object in explorer -> Export as pointclouds (sorry to have omitted this information):
And for colored meshes from point clouds (or pictures ... :)) your are on the right track: we are working with our new fellows from ACUTE3D and you'll have good news soon...