really cant wait to see this. !

@ng5 Alex : Spoiler

oh this looks so great. 616ms !

lately i am working with point clouds coming from SfM software. i was trying to build a workflow in gh. this comes just right on time!! is there access to color data?

ok i am just gonna have to be patient for the approval.

Thanks Mateusz!

This sounds great. We had a recent project with 20 million points in e57 format. We ended up using cloudcompare which was a very good opensource tool. There is an e57 import plugin for rhino but it would just crash on import. Using cloudcompare I had to decimate the cloud quite a bit to bring it into rhino. Do you have any idea of what the point count limits are in rhino. Looking forward to having these capabilities in GH.

Hello machinestories,

using .ply format rhino opens this point cloud without problems. it has point, normal and color information. then using this c# script by david rutten this point cloud gets referenced to grasshopper (4.8 minutes needed in my pc). problem is that it outputs no normals (dont speak c# to pinpoint the problem).

then provided that the preview of the points is off i managed to work in grasshopper with 30million points.

best

alex

Hey Mateusz,

I'm new to point clouds, so I'm not sure if my problem is with Volvox or just... general incompetence..

I'm attempting to convert a pointcloud I've been given into a mesh (I specifically need the very uneven floor). Its a Rhino Point cloud, and 30+mill points.

My first approach i'm attempting to utilise volvox to remove most of the unwanted data from pointcloud, (walls, columns etc) Then explore some different meshing techniques to generate appropriate floor mesh.

Does that sound sensible to you?

The ability of Volvox to extract only the Scanner positions (poses) from Point Clouds in E57 format provides new efficient ways of handling large Scans of buildings. This, as one is typically only interested in a certain area or floor of a scanned building.

Having access to the Scan positions, without the need to load tens of Gigabytes, allows to quickly select and import only scans in a certain height and range.

Here a small GH definition, which uses the A-House Scan June E57 file from data.duraark.eu (10.4GB in size, 16 scans covering two levels) The GH definition allows to select and subsequently import:

a) only scans from a certain range in height - lower scans

upper

b) only scans in a certain range in XYZ direction

The definition is not very sophisticated, but demonstrates how Volvox and Point Clouds can integrate into Grasshopper workflows. The GH definition can be found   here

The scan can be directly downloaded from here

Here a full view on the A-house scan with 8% of points loaded:

We are organising a Volvox related workshop in the frame of the Advances in Architectural Geometry conference at ETH Zurich from 9-13. September 2016.

Some seats are still available for the workshop 10 "Scripting Reality – Integrating 3D Point Clouds in parametric design workflows". 

This research-based workshop will introduce participants to thegeometrical class of point clouds and ways to handle, manipulate, analyse and script with them. Participants will as well have the chance to get first-hand knowledge in the handling of 3d capturing devices and to link their outputs directly into a design environment.

AMAZING

Mateusz, im sure you are buzy with OBJECT right now, so when everyou have the time can you explain more about :

keys > how do they work  (this info is from the heart example)

meaning: in your example file you use key name (such as my : MyEquation )

then you use Equation > (x^2 + (9*y^2)/4 + z^2 - 1)^3 - x^2*z^3 -((9*(y^2)*(z^3))/80)

where do you find all those goodies ?? all those expressions and equations

thnx

Hello Mateusz,

I am trying to find out the points within a cloud which are also included in a mesh in the same cloud. I am using the mesh include but than I get again a cloud, but I rather need a list of trues and falses as in mesh inclusion component in grasshopper. I dont want to convert the cloud since it is too cumbersome. So is there a possibility to get the indices of the points in the subcloud or getting a list of trues and falses? Thank you in advance

@Zeynep - hey, the Mesh Compare component will compute signed distance values for each point in the point cloud. Negative distance means the point is inside the mesh, positive is outside.