Importing Point Clouds

When your 3D Observation Project has been created and loaded you can import Point Clouds and Reality Meshes from the cloud storage.

Point Cloud Import Limitations

IMS directly supports importing Point Clouds in the .E57 file format; however, IMS is not able to convert .LAS and .LAZ files containing more than 1,425,078,282 points.

To import .LAS/.LAZ format files containing more points than the limit:

• Split the .LAS/.LAZ files into smaller files and import each smaller file separately; or,

• Convert the .LAS/.LAZ files directly into .E57 format prior to importing into IMS.

Selecting and Importing Point Clouds

Importing a Point Cloud

To import a Point Cloud:

• Open your 3D Observation Project (if not yet open).

• Click on the 3D Localization button to open the 3D Localization – Point Cloud side panel. 

• If the Point Cloud needs to be aligned with the 3D model, enter the Transform information fields: X, Y, Z for translation in meters and R for the rotation angle about Z-axis in degrees.

• Click Browse to browse through the cloud storage.

• Select the Point Cloud files that are relevant to the Project. If all Point Clouds in the folder should be imported, click Select All. 

• Click Select to prepare the selected Point Cloud files for import.

Supported File Types

IMS is able to import Point Cloud files in E57, LAS, LAZ, and other formats that CloudCompare application can handle.

• You can use the Point density slider to set the Point Cloud quality for the 3D Localization.

If a single Point Cloud was selected for import:

• Click Start Import to import the selected Point Cloud. 

If multiple Point Clouds were selected for import, the Point Clouds can be merged into a single Point Cloud:

• Check the Merge point clouds on import check box.

• Click Start Import to merge and import the selected Point Clouds.

 You can also use Point Clouds that have been used previously:

• Select the Use Existing tab.

• Click Browse.

• Select one or more Point Clouds from the list.

• Click Select.

Note

Importing Point Clouds can take several hours (depending on the size of the selected Point Cloud files).  Import progress will be shown in the 3D Observation Grid View and an e-mail will be sent to initiator of the Point Cloud import when the Point Cloud import is complete.

If IMS detects that storage space is inadequate, the Point Cloud Import will be cancelled, and IMS will display a warning.  Clicking Try Again will take you back to the Import Point Cloud dialog.

Cancelling a Point Cloud Import

Importing a Point Cloud can be cancelled after import has started.  To cancel the import:

• Click Cancel in the Import Point Cloud dialog.

 You will be taken back to the Import Point Cloud dialog.

Importing Reality Meshes

To import Reality Meshes:

• Navigate to IMS Settings → Data Transfer → Upload 3D Meshes.

• From the dropdown, select the desired Site/Plant/Unit map to which you want to attach the Reality Mesh.

• Click Browse.

• Select the Reality Mesh from the Azure storage browser dialog and click Select.

• The upload progress will be displayed on the Upload 3D Meshes page.

Supported File Types

IMS is able to import reality meshes consisting of Wavefront OBJ files for geometry definition, and Material Template Library (MTL) and JPG files for defining material types.

Images and Annotations Import

Immediately after the Point Cloud import, the Images and Annotations import process will be triggered. As with the Point Cloud import, an e-mail will be sent to the initiator, when the import is complete. This operation could take up to an hour, depending on the number of images that will be imported.

When all of the Images and Annotations have been imported, the Images list will be populated in the side panel.

Point Cloud - Functions

Load Point Cloud

Click Load Point Cloud to load and show the low-density version of the Point Cloud that was previously imported.

Hide Point Cloud / Show Point Cloud

Once the Point Cloud is loaded, you can hide / show the Point Cloud by clicking Hide Point Cloud / Show Point Cloud (see figure below). 

Point size

You can change the Point Cloud Points size by moving the Point Size slider.

Load High Resolution Point Cloud

High Resolution Point Cloud can be loaded for specific areas or geometries in the model.  To load the Point Cloud:

• Select the desired geometry in the model.

• Click the Point Cloud button.

A bounding box will appear around the selected geometry.  You can move and resize the bounding box.

• Click Move or Resize to adjust the box to your needs.

• Click Move or Resize to deselect that function.

• Click Load Point Cloud.

When the Point Cloud has been loaded, you can adjust the Opacity and Point Size to suit your needs using the Opacity and Point size sliders.

To unload the Point Cloud, click Unload Point Cloud.

Filters

Click Filters to filter the Image list by the following:

• Selected / Not selected for calculation. 

• Reviewed / Not Reviewed.

• Image status (None, Invalid, Calculated). 

• Has Annotations (show only images that have at least one annotation).

Settings (for the Point Cloud)

Click Settings to change default calculation settings. This calculation settings will be used when 3D Locations for all images annotations are calculated. The following Settings are available:

• Maximum search distance - Point Cloud points that are farther than this value will not be considered for the calculation.

• Search radius/cluster distance - The 3D localization algorithm first clusters the Point Cloud points into point groups by using this value – all points that are inside this radius will be clustered into one group.

• Minimum number of points in cluster - A point group will be created only if it contains minimally this number of points, otherwise it will be skipped.

• 3D distance for annotation cluster - This is used in the last stage, when the project is being resolved. If there are multiple Annotations from different images whose 3D location is within the radius of this value, and they share the same Issue Class and Severity, they will be clustered into one Annotation.

Results

Click Results to be informed with all calculated 3D positions in a grid form. The following grid columns are available:

• • Photo Id 

  • Annotation - The Issue class and Severity.

  • Distance from camera - The distance from the calculated 3D Location to the camera.

  • Distance from center - The distance from the center of the 2D Annotation to the projected 3D Location on the image, in pixels.

Note: If no calculation has been performed, this grid will be empty.

Calculate and Resolve

There are two more buttons:

• Calculate - This is used for 3D position calculations for all Image Annotations. 

• Resolve - This is used in the last stage, when all 3D positions are calculated, and all Images are reviewed – it triggers project resolving.

Image properties

Each item in the Images list consists of the following:

• A check box that indicates if image will be used for the calculation and in the project Resolving.

• Calculation Status, which can be None (grey), Invalid (red) and Calculated (green).

• Review Status, which can be Not Reviewed (grey), Reviewed (blue). You can set the Status on the Image details, after you reviewed the calculations results.

• Image name.

• A button that will open the Image in the Image Gallery, in a new tab.

• Image thumbnail – Note that the thumbnail will be generated the first time that you open the image in alignment mode (by clicking on the thumbnail placeholder).