Point Cloud Visualizer

Coding Released Scripts and Themes
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Great add-on! I tested with some Houdini PLY -> MeshLab -> Blender. No idea why Houdini PLY color does not work right away.

I am wondering if once the data is loaded and displayed, perhaps we can change the point size like in Meshlab?

Just wondering if I could turn this add-on into a node? For Sverchok or Animation Nodes? So that maybe the point data can be used further to generate instances?

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  1. if you can provide some houdini ply i can look what is wrong with itā€¦ or houdini ply is ascii, then it will not work. addon requires binary ply
  2. well, i am not opengl master and i found only functions to draw pixel point and something called like smooth point and thatā€™s all. i suspect meshlab draws some instanced primitive which is something out of my current knowledge. and also maybe something that canā€™t be done efficiently with current python api.
  3. would be better to code it from scratch. ply reader included is build for speed, it basically reads only coordinates and color. ignores everything elseā€¦
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Hi thereā€¦just a little bump: any plans for a 2.8 update? Wonder how this would work in the new viewport. Hope this or similar addons will be developed as pointsclouds are more and more common nowadays.

1 Like
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yes of course, if iā€™ll be able to do that. when python api will be finished, mac os x version gets some love from developers and i get used a bit to itā€¦

2 Likes
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Nice work! WOW. Iā€™m dreaming of the day when this type of displaying of point cloud data can be editable. Would be priceless for trimming and aligning of point cloud sets.

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Guys!? Do somebody knows why after installation and turning on this addon i canā€™t see itā€™s appeared in to the ā€œN panelā€? At first I thought that something wrong with Blender version or directory where it instaled. But I have same problem with default instalation proreties and with previous versions. Is it something I do incorrect? By the way openGL Lights is working well/

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You need to add an helper object to the scene. Whenever you select it, a new dialog should appear in N panel.

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You need to add an helper object to the scene. When you select it, a new dialog should appear in N panel.

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IS this addon just showing the pcloud or also there is a way to import the point cloud with various options using the addon?

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hi, add an empty object, then panel will be visible. when you transform that empty, pointcloud transforms as well. thatā€™s why it requires an object

just showing all vertices with rgb values from binary ply, nothing more at the moment

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sounds good, thanks

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carbon2, thanks for a great plugin. I love the ability to view point clouds with colour within the Blender viewport. Iā€™m trying to export animations with this, but canā€™t find a way to render the point cloud to image/video files. I tried openGL and also the blender standard render. Is there anything else I can try?

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it canā€™t be rendered, points are drawn the same way as other addons draws custom user interface to viewport, the only way would be capture screen with some other software i guess

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updated to 2.80, see first post

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another update (0.4.5), added percentage of displayed points, more speed improvements and a few fixes

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and one more update:
0.4.6 fixed crash when parent object is deleted while drawing, fixed removal of loaded data when parent is deleted

1 Like
37

Just had a chance to quickly test the 0.4.6 update before leaving the office, with a fresh 2.8 buildā€¦The performance improvement is oustanding, was able to load a large lidar scan chunk (78 mil points afaik), while it took a while to load and almost filled my 64gb ram, the viewport responsivness /fps is great, also the points radius slider is a nice addition! Didnā€™t have time to play with a complete production scene as it would need some time to import everything, so better just wait for next project and do the switch. This update is fundamental for my workflow, now iā€™m just missing the Random Object Array (should get an update soon after 2.8 stable release) and i can switch to 2.8 for production :smiley:
ā€¦canā€™t wait, love the new 2.8 features, many of them will save me tons of headaches.
Well done, thanks so much for this addon!

2 Likes
38

new update as christmas present :slight_smile:

0.5.0 performance improvements using numpy for loading and processing data

in other words, 16m ply now take 4.5s to load and process instead of 71s as was before. thatā€™s almost 16x faster, hope i didnā€™t introduced some bugs, but works on ply files from PhotoScan which are all iā€™ve gotā€¦

thanks, i am glad somebody found it useful

1 Like
39

numpy!! Always interesting to hear about the performance gains when something is migrated to it. Looking forward to revisiting the Point Cloud Visualizer. I have some photogrammetry-scanned animals that are looking forward to being displayed in full color.

Thanks!

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Just wow. Back in the office and did a test on 0.5, a 136mln pointcloud from a laserscan iā€™m working on and it was loaded in likeā€¦less than 10 seconds? Only 15Gb ram used, and a usable, smooth viewport :smiley:
Another impressive performance gain iā€™d say!