Sharing Clouds with Potree

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C-SE
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Sharing Clouds with Potree

Post by C-SE »

I'm looking for a bit of help regarding the hosting of clouds that I can easily share with clients through a browser link.

I'm looking to avoid any third party cloud hosting costs, as for now at least this is not a common thing for me. So I've got Potree setup and running, got the clouds converted and viewable locally through XAMPP (took me a while as I'm new to this with zero coding experience but muddled through) I'm now at the 'just stick it all on a webserver and you're done' stage, which is all the instruction I've found so far, but it has me stumped.

I have got VPS, just a cheap one to trial on but it has enough storage for a few tests, used cPanel to upload all the necessary files to it, aaand....? Whats next?

Again, zero experience with coding or servers so forgive me if this next step is staring me in the face. I feel like I just need to alter a pathway in the .html file, but to what? And do I need to set the server up in some way to allow access to it via a .html link?

Any advice will be much appreciated

Thanks
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Re: Sharing Clouds with Potree

Post by smacl »

C-SE wrote: Tue May 31, 2022 1:05 pmI have got VPS, just a cheap one to trial on but it has enough storage for a few tests, used cPanel to upload all the necessary files to it, aaand....? Whats next?

Again, zero experience with coding or servers so forgive me if this next step is staring me in the face. I feel like I just need to alter a pathway in the .html file, but to what? And do I need to set the server up in some way to allow access to it via a .html link?
If you're using a VPS you need to make sure your potree structure and point cloud are in a folder that is linked to your main HTML page. This varies, but on the one I use, there is a folder called public_html off the root which is normally where you would put web pages. You will need to know the domain name for your VPS which will typically point to that folder. So for example I have potree sample at https://www.atlas-files.com/potree/potest.html which in my FTP systems appears in the folder /public_html/potree off the root on my www.atlas-files.com domain. Hope this makes sense.
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Re: Sharing Clouds with Potree

Post by C-SE »

That does make sense, thanks for the response.

My issue now then is I can't currently access the server through a browser, to view the files as an index like your example. I think I've got some domain issues to figure out. I'd like to link this server 'database' to my existing site as a subdomain, which may be getting a little off topic...

Assuming I can figure that out, I just need the project folder (containing the hierarchy, metadata and octree files) and the project.html to both be in the public_root folder (or a subfolder within I assume?) and we're good to go?

Thanks again
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Re: Sharing Clouds with Potree

Post by smacl »

C-SE wrote: Tue May 31, 2022 4:17 pm That does make sense, thanks for the response.

My issue now then is I can't currently access the server through a browser, to view the files as an index like your example. I think I've got some domain issues to figure out. I'd like to link this server 'database' to my existing site as a subdomain, which may be getting a little off topic...

Assuming I can figure that out, I just need the project folder (containing the hierarchy, metadata and octree files) and the project.html to both be in the public_root folder (or a subfolder within I assume?) and we're good to go?

Thanks again
Yep, when you buy a shared server it's publicly visible address is usually quite long and based around the hosting company domain name, server address and root folder. You then buy a domain name and point it to that address as an alias and wait for the DNS sites to catch up. Many hosting companies offer this as part of the overall package.
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Re: Sharing Clouds with Potree

Post by C-SE »

Thanks again for the help Shane, I've got it. I created a subdomain on my little server and connected it back to my main domain by adding the A record to my main domains DNS provider

I think... don't ask me to do it again..

Anyway I can now see all the files on my server http://clouds.c-se.co.uk/ but, I'm having some trouble with the structure to get Potree to work. I have tried copying the pathway for my test project as it is on my localhost (Xampp which works), plus I've tried some other configurations but all i get from the html is a blank screen, not even Potree running without a cloud?

I'm converting with potreeconverter_2.1 into "\xampp\htdocs\potree" to run on the localhost, and just copying the html and the three pointcloud files hierarchy, metadata and octree onto the server. I notice the files in your "/pointclouds/potest" folder are different to those three?
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Re: Sharing Clouds with Potree

Post by VXGrid »

C-SE wrote: Wed Jun 01, 2022 2:05 pm Thanks again for the help Shane, I've got it. I created a subdomain on my little server and connected it back to my main domain by adding the A record to my main domains DNS provider

I think... don't ask me to do it again..

Anyway I can now see all the files on my server http://clouds.c-se.co.uk/ but, I'm having some trouble with the structure to get Potree to work. I have tried copying the pathway for my test project as it is on my localhost (Xampp which works), plus I've tried some other configurations but all i get from the html is a blank screen, not even Potree running without a cloud?

I'm converting with potreeconverter_2.1 into "\xampp\htdocs\potree" to run on the localhost, and just copying the html and the three pointcloud files hierarchy, metadata and octree onto the server. I notice the files in your "/pointclouds/potest" folder are different to those three?
Your structure online is not right.
If you are on the site:
http://clouds.c-se.co.uk/potree/Tewin%20Hill2/
You can see the TewinHill2.html file and the two subfolders, but the libs folder is empty.
Once this is filled with all the stuff which goes in there it should work ;)

Edit:
The structure must look like this
- libs
---- brotli
---- ...
---- potree
---- ...
- pointclouds
---- projectName
---- ---- hierarchy.bin
---- ---- metadata.json
---- ---- octree.bin
- project.html
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Re: Sharing Clouds with Potree

Post by C-SE »

Perfect! I felt it would probably be something simple I was overlooking, thanks for the assistance!

One last thing while I'm here, and apologies if this is an old topic, I'm experimenting now with tweaking the display settings to improve the look of the clouds, does anyone have any tips on their preferred settings? Does anyone use 'standard profiles' for the decimation of the cloud vs the point size for example? And how does it vary on say an aerial earthworks project vs a detailed building facade? I'll figure out my preferences in time but any tips would be welcome

Thanks again
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Re: Sharing Clouds with Potree

Post by VXGrid »

C-SE wrote: Mon Jun 06, 2022 8:53 am Perfect! I felt it would probably be something simple I was overlooking, thanks for the assistance!

One last thing while I'm here, and apologies if this is an old topic, I'm experimenting now with tweaking the display settings to improve the look of the clouds, does anyone have any tips on their preferred settings? Does anyone use 'standard profiles' for the decimation of the cloud vs the point size for example? And how does it vary on say an aerial earthworks project vs a detailed building facade? I'll figure out my preferences in time but any tips would be welcome

Thanks again
So the decimation when generating the potree files is one thing. It is basically data size + loading speed vs looks.
If you decimate more points, the cloud is more sparse and might look worse.

The settings for the viewer itself are total preferences.
I think I normally use point adapting, but I know people who prefer fixed, but set the size of the points to 3.
Generally I prefer circles over squares.
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Re: Sharing Clouds with Potree

Post by C-SE »

smacl wrote: Tue May 31, 2022 1:53 pm
C-SE wrote: Tue May 31, 2022 1:05 pmI have got VPS, just a cheap one to trial on but it has enough storage for a few tests, used cPanel to upload all the necessary files to it, aaand....? Whats next?

Again, zero experience with coding or servers so forgive me if this next step is staring me in the face. I feel like I just need to alter a pathway in the .html file, but to what? And do I need to set the server up in some way to allow access to it via a .html link?
If you're using a VPS you need to make sure your potree structure and point cloud are in a folder that is linked to your main HTML page. This varies, but on the one I use, there is a folder called public_html off the root which is normally where you would put web pages. You will need to know the domain name for your VPS which will typically point to that folder. So for example I have potree sample at https://www.atlas-files.com/potree/potest.html which in my FTP systems appears in the folder /public_html/potree off the root on my www.atlas-files.com domain. Hope this makes sense.

Thanks again, it's all clicked now and working well, I think some of my clients are frankly scared at how furturistic it all is suddenly!

The next thing that will really kick it on is the addition of linework into the model. smacl, your example from above https://www.atlas-files.com/potree/potest.html shows exactly what I'm after.

Creating the design linework is no problem (dwg, dxf, xml, I'm sure I can convert it into anything else that may be required) can anyone provide me with some direction on the process of getting it added to the potree model? What format does it need to be in? I can see linework and text in the eg above, is the whitelining a different object? Can 3d triangles / tin surfaces also be displayed?

Thanks
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Re: Sharing Clouds with Potree

Post by badam »

Hello because potree is based on threejs, then any format can be used in potree what threejs support. But you need to implement the loading of these structures. If you want to import mesh for example stl can be loaded even with materials. There are examples for this in the potree example htmls
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