Is Recap the right tool for large point clouds?

Discuss Autodesk ReCap Studio software here.
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Re: Is Recap the right tool for large point clouds?

Post by Scott »

dlefebvre wrote: Wed May 29, 2019 10:09 pm Never mind the load times etc. Everyone's work flow and requirements are different but it just seems like a hassle to me!
+1 --Tower of Babel, phase 2 :D
Last edited by Scott on Wed May 29, 2019 10:31 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Is Recap the right tool for large point clouds?

Post by dlefebvre »

Scott wrote: Wed May 29, 2019 10:22 pm
dlefebvre wrote: Wed May 29, 2019 10:09 pm Never mind the load times etc. Everyone's work flow and requirements are different but it just seems like a hassle to me!
+1 Tower of Babel, phase 2 :D
Am I wrong here!!??
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Re: Is Recap the right tool for large point clouds?

Post by jamesworrell »

It is not the first time I have thought about "sponsoring" an annual Cloudworx license for an end user so I can just give them a single export - LGS.

We also use LGS as a backup archive - so we are running this anyway for internal extract workflows and archive.

Better yet, now that Jetstream supports user access control via per-project passwords, there are no exports at all per se, just one publish. This is something we intend to look at much more seriously when I get a moment.

Cloudworx works out to be about $10 a work day which IMHO is too high - when you consider an architectural firm might have 20+ designers working with clouds. Would love to see a version of Cloudworx for Revit that drops the "Pro" tag and supports import and clipping and not much more and is 1/10th of the price.

I suspect this would expand the ecosystem buy-in dramatically. Everyone our end gets publisher pro/jetstream .. other end gets cloudworx .. everyone wins with no file transfers.

That only leaves non-plugin, HTML5 Truviews and I can shut up ;-p
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Re: Is Recap the right tool for large point clouds?

Post by Matt Young »

In my arrogant opinion it's not the formats that are the issue. RCS files are ok Cloudworx & Jetstream are other options.

The real problem I see is the amount of data being collected these days. And do we really need it all? You can define a rectangular object in plan with three points. It does not take much more to define it in 3D. Add a little detail to the room and you need some more points. But do we really need billions of points for that room?

When I started out in scanning it was rare to see a project as large as one gigabyte. There were a handful of people using laser scanners. Now there are tens of thousands of people scanning. And we are shifting a couple of terrybytes here and there like it's nothing.

Everything, not just in scanning, but also in life, is about balance. Apply the correct amount of scan points to the job in hand, segment data carefully. Or pay the price in time and hair (lost a lot of mine).

Less haste, more speed.
If you don't see that there is nothing, then you are kidding yourself.
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Re: Is Recap the right tool for large point clouds?

Post by dlefebvre »

Matt, I agree. I started out using a Cyrax 2500 almost 15 years ago. Projects were small and focused and data size was way smaller. I'm just as guilty as the next person for running out and flogging any area with a scanner and collecting as much as possible. Generally speaking though we can do this for our own internal use, not for delivery to end clients. And because we've always had software that could easily handle the growing size of the data it was never a concern. Now we have clients who want to see the scan data for themselves and use it along side or separately in their projects. There have been times where I try and provide a cloud that is the right size/density (in my opinion) to function nicely with Recap. Then I have clients calling and saying we did a crappy job. So you give them the full scan data and they complain again because it's too much...Just me venting now. Regardless, I may have to adjust how i go about dealing with this issue in the future. Although I am fan of the sponsorship idea previously posted. Would save whats left of my hair!
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Re: Is Recap the right tool for large point clouds?

Post by timlovesann »

In my opinion, No.

I have been using ReCap software for 3 years now. ReCap can handle C2C with acceptable results on smaller jobs with good balance. Most of our manufacturing plant space has poor balance. I find the C2C reporting full of error when my site conditions have poor balance. For example: during the "auto-registration" step, scans will overlap on top of each other when they are actually spaced 20'. The reporting shows my registration is good.... (LOL) It can take a significant amount of time to fix auto-registration errors with ReCap projects that contain over 30 scans. When you get over 100 scans the task to fix errors can get daunting. The alignment tools are limited.

Our standard workflow requires target use so ReCap can report C2C results based on common targets. Use of targets in ReCap is our only method to verify a quality registration job. However, target selection and matching is a TIME CONSUMING manual process in ReCap. Not for those professionals who need to be competitive during your post processing effort.

I have also tried to use ReCap's "enhanced target registration". This feature provide really great results when it works. I find it only works when under 50 scans and with only 1 overall RMS. If you use this feature with individual scan groups, with different overall RMS values, the final project registration will explode. "Explode" means: Enhanced target results are much worse than overall C2C results. I have a recent support ticket in with Autodesk to find out why this happens.

Here is the target enhancement feature workflow. Use at your own risk!!!!
https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/ ... rgets.html

Take care,
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Re: Is Recap the right tool for large point clouds?

Post by wgfletch »

Matt Young wrote: Thu May 30, 2019 2:14 pm In my arrogant opinion it's not the formats that are the issue. RCS files are ok Cloudworx & Jetstream are other options.

The real problem I see is the amount of data being collected these days. And do we really need it all? You can define a rectangular object in plan with three points. It does not take much more to define it in 3D. Add a little detail to the room and you need some more points. But do we really need billions of points for that room?

When I started out in scanning it was rare to see a project as large as one gigabyte. There were a handful of people using laser scanners. Now there are tens of thousands of people scanning. And we are shifting a couple of terrybytes here and there like it's nothing.

Everything, not just in scanning, but also in life, is about balance. Apply the correct amount of scan points to the job in hand, segment data carefully. Or pay the price in time and hair (lost a lot of mine).

Less haste, more speed.
this is very true

if i had to guess it is the growing number of people relying on c2c

in general though you all are not going to win the recap battle anytime soon...to be clear (for those that may not be familiar with autodesk) recap is FREE..ontop of that you dont even need recap installed to just reference in a rcp or rcs into the autodesk products...AND recap pro is included in the AEC collection so 99.99% of people who run any of the design software already have the full recap pro

from a design build firm perspective we always want scan positions and people can crank up point decimation more then they usually do..I may be a bit unique but i would rather make the call to unify my rcp into a single rcs...having scan positions in revit can be incredibly valuable in a building you have never been in
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Re: Is Recap the right tool for large point clouds?

Post by DoctaSayas »

The Largest point cloud I've worked with in ReCap is 250GB, with pictures. It was a little bit clunky but never crashed.

As long as your client has a decent hardware setup, it should be no problem to work with some relatively large point clouds.
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Re: Is Recap the right tool for large point clouds?

Post by timlovesann »

DoctaSayas,
Was that 250 GB project cloud to cloud only? Did you use targets to confirm an accurate C2C? If yes, did you use the target enhancement feature?
Here is a link to the Autodesk workflow:
https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/ ... rgets.html
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Re: Is Recap the right tool for large point clouds?

Post by smacl »

Matt Young wrote: Thu May 30, 2019 2:14 pmThe real problem I see is the amount of data being collected these days.
This, and how and when it is reduced is also an issue. A high speed scanner that can collect a million or two million points a second is fine, but most of these points should never be stored. If you have co-planar points, or even co-linear points, very close to one another with similar intensity values there should be an option to discard them at time of scan. I carried out an exercise a few months ago on a scan of a railway tunnel done with a P40 and ended up with a 73% reduction on number of points for no visible difference in the scan and no difference > 0.1mm on the delivered model.
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