Ferreira, S. & Torres, R.

– Centro de Investigaciones del Patrimonio Costero – CURE/UdelaR

CENTRO DE INVESTIGACIONES DEL PATRIMONIO COSTERO - CIPAC

TUTORIAL: COMPARING POINT CLOUDS FROM PHOTOSCAN PROJECTS INTO

2017
 Ferreira, S. & Torres, R. – Centro de Investigaciones del Patrimonio Costero – CURE/UdelaR

Team:

Dra. Samila Pereira Ferreira – CIPAC

http://cipac.cure.edu.uy

To refer this tutorial:

FERREIRA, Samila & TORRES, Rodrigo. Centro de Investigaciones del Patrimonio Costero.
Tutorial: Comparing Point Clouds from Photoscan Projects into Cloud Compare. Centro
Universitario de la Región Este (CURE). Maldonado, 2017.
 Ferreira, S. & Torres, R. – Centro de Investigaciones del Patrimonio Costero – CURE/UdelaR

COMPARING POINT CLOUDS FROM PHOTOSCAN PROJECTS INTO CLOUD

1. After getting the point clouds from a model in the Photoscan software it is necessary to orient
and scale the object (check the procedure at: Basic Tutorial of Agisoft Photoscan). After that go to
File > Export Points > Save in a PLY format.
 Ferreira, S. & Torres, R. – Centro de Investigaciones del Patrimonio Costero – CURE/UdelaR

2. Open the PLY file in Cloud Compare. Check if the scale from CC corresponds to Photoscan.
 Ferreira, S. & Torres, R. – Centro de Investigaciones del Patrimonio Costero – CURE/UdelaR

3. Pressing Ctrl, select the point clouds in the left sidebar. After that select the icon “Aligns two
clouds” at the superior bar and choose which model will be the reference designated by the yellow
color.
 Ferreira, S. & Torres, R. – Centro de Investigaciones del Patrimonio Costero – CURE/UdelaR

4. Select the correspondent points in both objects. After four points it allows the alignment by
clicking in Align in the points tab. If the result does not come satisfactory reset the overlaping and
add new corresponding points. To delete points just click on the red X on the points tab by the end
of each point.
 Ferreira, S. & Torres, R. – Centro de Investigaciones del Patrimonio Costero – CURE/UdelaR

5. Whenever the result comes satisfactory click on the check icon (✓) on the tab of points.
 Ferreira, S. & Torres, R. – Centro de Investigaciones del Patrimonio Costero – CURE/UdelaR

6. To refine the overlaping go to the icon “Finely registers” to obtain a better result.
 Ferreira, S. & Torres, R. – Centro de Investigaciones del Patrimonio Costero – CURE/UdelaR

7. Define the reference point cloud model. If needed to invent click on “swap”. Click OK and the
fine register report will pop out.
 Ferreira, S. & Torres, R. – Centro de Investigaciones del Patrimonio Costero – CURE/UdelaR

8. The model shall generate a “Cloud Registered” on the left sidebar. After that, click on the icon
“Compute cloud” to start the compute process between the point clouds.
 Ferreira, S. & Torres, R. – Centro de Investigaciones del Patrimonio Costero – CURE/UdelaR

9. Select both point clouds pressing Ctrl over the cloud icon on the left sidebar. Select the reference
point cloud. If needed to invert the order click swap and OK.
 Ferreira, S. & Torres, R. – Centro de Investigaciones del Patrimonio Costero – CURE/UdelaR

10. The result shall appear along with the tab “Distance computation”. After that click on
compute and OK.
 Ferreira, S. & Torres, R. – Centro de Investigaciones del Patrimonio Costero – CURE/UdelaR

11. Select the point cloud designed as “Cloud registered” by clicking on the cloud icon on the
left sidebar. On the properties tab select Color scale and mark visible. Select the absolute distances
on the SF display params graphic.
Ferreira, S. & Torres, R. – Centro de Investigaciones del Patrimonio Costero – CURE/UdelaR
 Ferreira, S. & Torres, R. – Centro de Investigaciones del Patrimonio Costero – CURE/UdelaR

12. To covert the project in a video, move the object using the mouse and to each desired position
click on Ctrl+V. Viewport layers shall be created on the left sidebar under an Eye icon. After
finish the process of creating desired positions, select the first viewport layer, press Shift and scroll
down to the last viewport. All viewport layers shall be selected. After that click on Plugins on the
superior bar followed by Animation. On the animation tab ajust the video duration, quality, etc.
Click on Preview to visualize the video and if the result is satsfactry select the folder to be saved
and click on Render.
 Ferreira, S. & Torres, R. – Centro de Investigaciones del Patrimonio Costero – CURE/UdelaR

13. To create interpolation and level contours for topography/bathymetry. Open the point cloud
in the .ply or .txt format. On the left sidebar check the cloud icon and click over it (the selection
shall appear in a blue background).
 Ferreira, S. & Torres, R. – Centro de Investigaciones del Patrimonio Costero – CURE/UdelaR

14. With the cloud icon selected go in the chess icon on the superior bar which means convert a
cloud to 2D raster. On the rasterize tab fill the model’s resolution according with its real scale in
step (in meters) and click on update grid. I the same tab rasterize, click on cloud. On the left
sidebar (first plan) shall appear a new file in a .raster format.
 Ferreira, S. & Torres, R. – Centro de Investigaciones del Patrimonio Costero – CURE/UdelaR

15. After this step and still on the rasterize tab, it will be needed to define in meters the gap between
the level contours in step, select the option colorize, and generate followed by export and OK.
The contour line value shall appear on the left sidebar (first plan).
 Ferreira, S. & Torres, R. – Centro de Investigaciones del Patrimonio Costero – CURE/UdelaR

16. To show all the files on the workplace (point cloud, raster and contour) all files must be selected
(✓). After that it is necessary to select each format at a time and click on the icon translate/rotate
on the superior bar. Holding the right click on the mouse, position the model in a desired place.
When the positioning is done click on the green check mark (✓) on the tab that will show up on
the right side of the screen. If it is necessary to redo the positioning click on the (X) icon to correct
it.