Model to pointCloud

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.

 

Parents
  • 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

  • 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.

  • Very nice output,
    If I get you well, you "bake" lightning into the color of point, correct ?

    And for Pointools, yes it's a lovely .. tool :D. But its logic has nothing to do with MS's or Bentley platform's so
    getting things done requires a change in habits..

    Vincent RAULT [Bentley]



  • Thanks again :)

    You are correct I bake it all into the RGB channel. If I had the time I'd read up on how to calculate shadow areas.
    But seing that poinTools offer some kind of lighting, perhaps all i need is to export with normals. We'll see :)

    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.

  • export to point cloud tool is not working the 64-bit beta, use the 32-bit release version for this tool.


    This is a test

  • 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 could not find an export option in the right-button menu in the "Objects" pane.
    • I could not get the "Home->Export" to save anything, it wanted to save a "sampled point cloud(*.txt)"-file, but no file was ever made.
    • On the "Point Clouds" tabs (the actual tab!, not the ribbon) tiny arrow-menu, I found an "Export pointcloud" and could choose AutoCAD R12 DXF(*.dxf) as the most 3D-ish option, but that crashed pointools. EDIT: To be fair, this button was on the ribbon as well - I just noticed that.

    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".

    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.

  • 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...

    Vincent RAULT [Bentley]



Reply Children
No Data