Point cloud in Meshlab, now what?

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hatethisbit
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Point cloud in Meshlab, now what?

Post by hatethisbit »

A work colleague recently scanned a clients building using a handheld scanner and ive taken the resulting .ply file and inserted it into Meshlab. The trouble is i have absolutely no idea now what i can do with it. Ideally we would like to be able to cut sections through the cloud and be able to measure from it. In a perfect world we'd also be able to mesh it and gain a 3d model from the cloud. I am a total novice with Meshlab and its interface is alien to me. Can anybody help?
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Re: Point cloud in Meshlab, now what?

Post by neeravbm »

Here's a good step-by-step tutorial to create a mesh in Meshlab: http://fabacademy.org/archives/2014/tut ... ToSTL.html

I am not sure if Meshlab has a sectioning tool though.
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Re: Point cloud in Meshlab, now what?

Post by gordonired »

If you are familiar with CloudCompare, you can import the .PLY into that software. You can use the section tool on either a mesh or a cloud. You will need to have it in point cloud form to measure from point to point. This is the quickest way for rough measurements in my opinion.
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Re: Point cloud in Meshlab, now what?

Post by 3DForensics »

You may want to consider CloudCompare as well. It has some really good features and will easily handle ply, plus convert to many formats. There are some simple meshing tools and you may be better off in MeshLab for that purpose but otherwise, CloudCompare is a great tool.
hatethisbit
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Re: Point cloud in Meshlab, now what?

Post by hatethisbit »

I am not familiar with any of these programs at all im afraid, Meshlabs is incredily confusing but i will have a look at Cloudcompare anyway.
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Re: Point cloud in Meshlab, now what?

Post by brian715 »

I have used Recap 360 pro to get a good mesh of a large room recently. You should be able to get a 30 Day trial to test it out. You must get a the pro version to do meshing.
hatethisbit
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Re: Point cloud in Meshlab, now what?

Post by hatethisbit »

Recap is something i can access. Is there a way to tighten up the accuracy of the points in the program? Now thinking we will ignore meshing and try to draft from the point cloud but its not quite tight enough.
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Re: Point cloud in Meshlab, now what?

Post by TMillington »

Chris

You won't be able to 'tighten up' the accuracy - the accuracy of the points is determined depending on the usual variables (scanning range, equipment, survey control, etc). However, if you're looking for more points in the cloud you're drawing from, you'll need to check the decimation settings when you initially import the scan data into Recap and then reduce the decimation factor
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hatethisbit
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Re: Point cloud in Meshlab, now what?

Post by hatethisbit »

Thats brilliant thank you. I'm aware im way out of my depth with programs such as meshlab but perhaps Recap will give me everything i need in regards to drafting from a point cloud?
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