Transform coordinate system

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Mastodont87
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Transform coordinate system

Post by Mastodont87 »

Dear scanning guru!

I'm sure that there is already a conversation about transformation of a project, but i can't find the correct thread, more over I think that the information in SCENE HELP documentation not fully cover this issue.
The question is next:
1. I'm trying to undersatand how can I transform my scans that after export my scans will be in the correct place in other softwares.
2. I don't understand where the Global system is located and how should I count a shift of my clasters along all axis?
3. If I have a project in Autocad is it possible to use it's coordinate system in SCENE. Is there any possibilyty to export coordinate system and transform all scans to this coordinate system?
4. I don't want to use other softwares for transformation and think that software for a few thousand euro should have a simple solution for that, am I wrong?

I spend a lot of time trying to understand that so, please help me with that, save my nerves ;)

It could be good if an explanation will be with some pictures. In this case it will be clearer for me.

Kind Regards.
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Re: Transform coordinate system

Post by Dedken »

To transform your scan survey into the coordinate system of your choice, simply right-click on the top folder in your hierarchy and go to Properties >> Transformation. There you can enter any offsets and rotations that you need.
All views are my own and are not representative of my employer, The King, God or anyone else for that matter.

"we need an instrument, to take a measurement" - I.MacKaye 1992
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Re: Transform coordinate system

Post by cpw006 »

I am with you on this issue. I am proficient with Cyclone and we have recently purchased a FARO scanner. Most of our clients want theccoordinate system to match a column line. It would be nice if you could take coordinates from a column in an Autocad drawing and then select the same point in Scene and enter the coordinates along with another point for the rotation. I find the transformation menu to be difficult to do this. Maybe I am not understanding it completely.
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Re: Transform coordinate system

Post by stevennorin »

I have this same problem with Scene. In many of our projects the owners want the scans to line up with the grid lines. I have not found a way to do this in Scene. The way I have made this happen is through Trimble Realworks. In Realworks you can select any single point in the cloud and change its X,Y and Z coordinate. This can be very helpful if you have a surveyed control point. Another method I have had success with is to determine a wall's X or Y coordinate in a CAD drawing and then moving the point cloud to that location using the shift project command. You can use the same command to shift the Z coordinate to the design finished floor elevation. I know this doesn't help your request to utilize Scene and not have to invest in more software but I haven't found a solution in Scene either.
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Re: Transform coordinate system

Post by Mastodont87 »

At the moment I found the next way to achieve a transformation which is close to the correct (which we need from the initial project, Autocad for example):
1. move a parent to 0 0 0 coordinates
2. then pick a point where you want the coordinate system
3. then transform the parent cluster with coordinates of the point we have picked but we have to use opposite sign for each coordinate.

.
so in this case we can approximately move the origin to the point we want (as on Autocad project for example), but in this case we still will have an unknown deviation because we can't pick exact point as we use in Autocad project. The picking process is based on "by eye" viewing. more over there is still an issue to understand how the axis should be aligned to the world, how we have to rotate the coordinate system.

i think it would be the very good if Scene developers will improve transformation process and make current (work) coordinate system visible to understand where it is located.

Use third part software for that is quite misunderstanding for me if pay the Price for the "Point registration" solution.
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Re: Transform coordinate system

Post by jon »

What Mastodont87 does is fairly similar to the process we are using in scene. It is a bit rough, but it seems to do the trick if you don't need a "perfect" match.

1. move root cluster to 0.0.0 to make things easier (Right click root folder/cluster -> properties)
2. create a point on a surface where you know one or more of X/Y/Z (If you have a surveyed reference ball or checkerboard that you know the exact coordinate of it is better.)
3. Look at the properties of this point and compare it to what it should be, make sure that you have the global coordinates checkerbox checked.
4. move your root cluster so that the point ends up in the correct position. (Lets say your point should be at X=4, but it is at X=3, you then have to add -1 for X in the properties for the root cluster.)
5. recheck the coordinates for the point you just used to make sure that you did not mix up something.
6. repeat for all X,Y and Z, possibly using different points and scans.

If you are just picking a random point on a wall that you know should be at X=4 there will of course be a bit of error due to point error, but in most cases this is not a problem.

If you have to rotate the coordinate system, you can either use the rotation properties on the root folder or right click on planes created in quick view in your reference scan and choose align -> n,e,w,s,c,f etc this does however seem to not always work. If you look at correspondence view there are also rotation handles that can be used to rotate things freehand. However the rotation handles seem to sometimes end up rotated around all axis' when trying this approach making it a rather ridiculous exercise in trying to rotate it around global Z using incremental rotations on all three of the rotation handles that seem to be locked to the local coordinate system.

I wouldn't mind a "rotate rotation handles for clusters to global coordinate system"-button. Or an option to display a grid over the whole viewport.
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Re: Transform coordinate system

Post by brianpgreen »

I'm assuming you are trying to do this in the absence of surveyed control points. Registering your scans to surveyed reference point is the best way to establish your coordinate system.

In the absence of surveyed control points, if there are three points that you can identify in both your scans and your cad file, you should be able to create reference points in Scene and register your project to the reference points using the place scans command rather than trying to work with the transform controls.

I can provide more details if you need them.
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Re: Transform coordinate system

Post by Mastodont87 »

brianpgreen wrote:
I can provide more details if you need them.
Dear brianpgreen, I will very pleased to you if you can explain to me the process clearly.
I didn't understand well how can i do a correct alignment in the way you tried to explain me.

At the moment I try to re-align our old projects which were made without any correspondences and surveyed control points. It were first scan projects in our company which were done without any understanding how scanning have to be done and how we could use a data in CAD. More over I have some large projects without even spheres. Thanks SCENE 5.3 for c2c registration, it really help me to register it with high accuracy.
But i still have some problems when I register an old project with few floors- there is a registration mistakes when first floor intersects second((( And I don't have a possibility to make a survey with total station to align it correctly.... But it's a question more about registration but)))

if you can helpp me with that either I'll be very happy too:)
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Re: Transform coordinate system

Post by cpw006 »

brianpgreen wrote:I'm assuming you are trying to do this in the absence of surveyed control points. Registering your scans to surveyed reference point is the best way to establish your coordinate system.

In the absence of surveyed control points, if there are three points that you can identify in both your scans and your cad file, you should be able to create reference points in Scene and register your project to the reference points using the place scans command rather than trying to work with the transform controls.

I can provide more details if you need them.
I would like to hear more as to how this is performed if there are no checkerboard or sphere targets.
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Re: Transform coordinate system

Post by brianpgreen »

First a qualification. I've not actually done this but I believe it will work better than trying to eyeball the transformation using the workspace transformation controls.

Very simply.
Identify 3 points in your cad file that you can also identify in the scans.
Create a .csv file containing the coordinates of the 3 points from your cad file
Mark the corresponding points in the scans.
Import the .csv file on the workspace level. (Drag it into your Scene window)
Create a cluster at the top level of your workspace.
Place your scans in a sub cluster.
Lock all of the scan managers below the top level. (You don't want to reregister your whole project, just move it to your coordinate system)
Use the command "place scans" using target based registration on the top level.
Scene hopefully will find the correspondences and translate and rotate your scan project to your coordinate system.
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