So you have a point cloud file, or point cloud data as part of a file, and would like to view it all in Prospect? If so, you may be wondering what is the easiest way to go from point clouds to VR, or photogrammetry to VR.
Prospect & Point Clouds
While Prospect isn't currently perfectly optimized for point clouds or photogrammetry data, the software is able to import that data as 3D geometry after it has been converted to a mesh.
Suggested Methods
There are a variety of tools and workarounds that can be utilized to convert point clouds into meshes for more successful imports to Prospect.
- Pointfuse is one such software that can import a wide variety of point cloud formats and has the ability to export to a number of filetypes supported by Prospect. We have heard great feedback from users who have tried Pointfuse as a way of converting their point cloud data to a mesh.
- Autodesk Recap 2022 reintroduced a scan to mesh workflows, which may be a viable option if it's a tool you have access to.
- Any filetype supported by Prospect can be used to import point cloud data that has been converted to a mesh. This includes OBJ, FBX, and SketchUp, Revit, Navisworks and Rhino.
Notes
- For Navisworks Users
- Image-based textures will not properly transfer into the VR experience, and will instead replace with an approximate color value because Autodesk does not currently allow 3rd party plugins to access true material information from Navisworks.
- The Revit API does not have this same shortcoming, nor do OBJ, FBX, or SketchUp files which can be imported directly into Prospect.