Uploading Point Clouds

Overview

A point cloud is a set of 3D points captured from a survey or scan. Lunr accepts point clouds in LAS and LAZ format (.las and .laz) and displays them in the browser-based point cloud viewer.

A point cloud is an ordinary document in Lunr. You upload it the same way as any other file, and it picks up the tags of the folder you upload into.

Uploading a Point Cloud

1. Open the folder in the repository, a project, or a change request where the point cloud should live. Check the breadcrumb trail first, because the new document picks up that folder's tags.
2. Select Upload and choose the .las or .laz file, or drag the file onto the document list.
3. Wait for the upload to finish. The file appears in the list as a new document, a new revision, or a rendition, depending on whether the folder already holds a document of the same name.

The rules that decide what an upload becomes, and how uploading into a project or a change request differs, are the same as for any other document. They are covered in Uploading Documents and Uploading in a Project or a Change Request.

Point clouds are often large, so allow time for the upload to complete before you leave the page.

While Lunr Prepares the Cloud

Lunr converts a point cloud into a form the viewer can stream before it can be shown. You may briefly see queued and processing states while this happens. Preparation typically takes 1 to 5 minutes, though a larger cloud can take longer.

You do not need to do anything while it runs. Once the cloud is ready, the viewer opens.

Opening a Point Cloud

Open the document the same way as any other document. The viewer, its measurement and clipping tools, and its panels are covered in Viewing Point Clouds.

Viewing Several Point Clouds Together

To read several point clouds against each other, for example scans of the same site taken on different dates, gather them into a scene. A scene opens its documents together as layers you can show, hide, and fade in the viewer.

Select the point clouds in a document list, choose Add to Collection, and set the collection type to Scene. The steps are covered in Creating a Scene, and setting layer order, opacity, and colour is covered in Editing a Scene.

Once a scene is open, the Scenes panel in the viewer lists each cloud with its own visibility, opacity, and zoom controls, covered in Working With Scenes.