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Descartes Point Cloud Presentation

Curtis Slater
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Hello, 

So I am extremely new to Microstation as well as Descartes so this has been a rough transition from AutoCad and any and all help here would be wonderful.

I have a pipe that I am trying to model by section from a point cloud.  I have created my section and am trying to setup a template to use as I walk forward.  While learning the basic fundamentals of this process I have contacted the bentley support and they resourced me to a video of a woman giving instructions on how to do this process, however, in her video she uses a B-spline curve to create the template.  I, on the other hand have a known diameter pipe and would like to use a circle for the template.  I have drawn the circle using the base geometry tool and when I go to select it for my template it says it is not valid for the tool.  I understand that the problem here is almost slapping me in the face but I find it rediculous that the program would only allow for splines to be  used as a template.  

Any and all help with a solution or to understand why this is would be greatly appreciated.  

Thanks

  • 0 Offline in reply to Mathieu St-pierre
    I did in fact try both. The density of the point cloud is pretty high. It is clearly discernible as a pipe. Simply, any tool I select and hover over a point on the point cloud it gives me the little yellow x and says this object isn't valid for this tool.

    With that being said, the pipe really isn't the difficult part. For the most part the pipe is in tact, so modeling it by section still only takes a few minutes. The problem is where the pipe has burst, over the years, has created a large empty void in the surrounding ground and concrete. Due to the nature of it, it is a large irregular shaped object, so modeling it by section takes a b-spline with a huge amount of vertices and it requires to be sectioned about every 2-4 inches. So an object approximately 150 cu ft., sectioned ever 2-3 inches, changing 50+ vertices each time the template is copied to the new section takes a huge amount of time. Not saying I didn't do it, but I feel that this should be an issue that has been addressed previously and there are many ways to expedite the process.

    As I said before, I am very new to Bentley Microstation/Descartes and wasn't sure. It seems by now that between this company and AutoCad that a solution to creating surfaces/solids from point cloud data should be a breeze. I know that AutoCad's weakness seems is the inability to read in such large files where Bentley does it no problem.

    Also, I keep hearing about this drape command and it seems like that would be a solution, but I have no idea how it works or how to operate the tool. If anyone could point me in the direction of a "good" tutorial that would be awesome.
  • 0 Offline in reply to Curtis Slater

    Hi Curtis,

    " Simply, any tool I select and hover over a point on the point cloud it gives me the little yellow x and says this object isn't valid for this tool. "

    Very strange, is your point cloud attached to the Point Clouds manager dialog as a POD file? The Fit Cylinder tool works only with POD file attached to the Point Cloud manager dialog.

    As for modelling advice it would be nice if you could post a picture of what you are trying to model?

    Thanks,

    Mathieu



  • 0 Offline in reply to Mathieu St-pierre

    Yes it is attached as a .pod.  It converts it to a .pod file when you load the file.

    This is an image of what I was able to create after about 12 hours of modeling by section and copying over a template.

  • 0 Offline in reply to Curtis Slater
    Hi Curtis,

    I think the purple object should modeled with surface reconstruction algorithm. Descartes has no such function to do that. You could try isolating the points corresponding the purple surface and creating a MicroStation mesh. Not sure about the result though.

    The Fit Cylinder should work well on the undamaged pipe section.

    HTH,

    Mathieu



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