PointCloud XR

PointCloud XR is an application that open point clouds (las-files) to view and analyze them in Virtual Reality. Read more about the development of the application here. The application is free to use (education, commercial, …).

The application will currently not be developed further. This may change in the future (this was written 2019-08-15). The latest version is 1.0.1. We have also released the source code to the application (written in Unity and C#). The repository only contains the code we have written ourself and therefore you need to fix dependencies yourself.

New features the current version 1.0.1 (released 2019-08-15)

  • Colorize by point source id.
  • Show/hide class 0-9 by clicking the number on your keyboard. Note: not the numeric keypad.
  • Set the size of the points in the settings file.
  • Use up and down on the right controller to change the size of the selection sphere.
  • Use up and down on the left controller to move the sphere towards or away from you.
  • Export to las.

Features in version 1.0.0 (released 2018-12-14)

  • Open points in LAS 1.2 format.
  • Depending on your hardware you can open about 15 million points and move around fluently.
  • You can “fly” around in the point cloud using your hand controller.
  • Change the size of the points.
  • Color the points by RGB, Class, Height or Intensity. The intensity can always be blended with either of the other coloring modes.
  • Measure distance. You can snap to points and restrict measurement in y-direction or in the xz-plane.
  • Select points using a sphere. The selected points can the be removed.
  • Save the edited point cloud in PCXR-format. LAS exporter is not implemented yet but we are working on that.
  • Set a new start position. This will only work with a file saved in PCXR-format.
  • Change the throttle (how fast you are flying when you press the trigger).

Bug reports and support

If you find bugs, please send an e-mail to vr@rslab.se with a description of the bug. You can also e-mail suggestions for development. We will though first prioritize the basic functionality described on this page. We can not give personal support to this application.

Requirements

We are not sure about the requirements, but we have tried the application using HTC Vive and HTC Vive Pro. Regarding graphics card we have used Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070, 1080 and 1080Ti and it runs on all.

Limitations

You can only open LAS 1.2 format. Please convert your files to the correct format using for example LASTools. Depending on the performance on your computer you may be able to load more or less points. Normally around 10-15 million points is the maximum before you get performance issues.

Download binary

Latest version (1.0.1): [sdm_download id=”1100″ fancy=”0″ button_text=”Download latest version 1.0.1 (47 MB)”]
Previous version (1.0.0, 2018-12-14): [sdm_download id=”973″ fancy=”0″ button_text=”Download version 1.0.0 (2018-12-14) (51 MB)”]

Source code

Download the source code from: github.com/mhzse/PointcloudXR

The repository only contains the code we have written ourself and therefore you need to fix dependencies yourself. The code is written by Mikael Hertz and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Example data

You can also download the forest plot we use in the quick start videos below. In this point cloud each tree is defined as its own class. There are no RGB values. We have thinned the point cloud to four different versions. Select the one that works best with your computers performance.

[sdm_download id=”981″ fancy=”0″ button_text=”TLS Forest classified 4 million (58 MB)”]

[sdm_download id=”982″ fancy=”0″ button_text=”TLS Forest classified 6 million (62 MB)”]

[sdm_download id=”983″ fancy=”0″ button_text=”TLS Forest classified 10 million (99 MB)”]

[sdm_download id=”984″ fancy=”0″ button_text=”TLS Forest classified 15 million (154 MB)”]

Install

  1. Download the latest version.
  2. Unzip the program.
  3. In a text editor, open the file “PointCloudXR_Data\StreamingAssets\conf\PointCloudXR\config.json”
  4. Set the path to a folder where you want to locate your las-files. Default path for “root_file_path” is “C:\\POINT_CLOUD_XR_DATA” which means that you will need to put your las-files in the folder “C:\POINT_CLOUD_XR_DATA\import\LAS”. These sub folders are created automatically the first time you start the application. Otherwise you can create the sub folders and copy in with the LAS-files you want to import. Note that you need double back-slash (\\) when specifying the “root_file_path”.

Run

  1. Double-click the file “PointCloudXR.exe”.
  2. Click the top-button on your right Vive controller to reset the menu to be just in front of you.
  3. On the right side you have the las-files located in the folder you specified in the conf.json-file. Select one of the files by touching it with red arrow you see on your right Vive controller. Note: Do not press any buttons. You should only touch with the arrow.
  4. Hit “IMPORT” with the red arrow.
  5. Watch the Quick start video below to get familiar with the application and the current features implemented.

Quick start tutorial

Detailed tutorial

Coming soon. You can try the functions yourself meanwhile.