I have been struggling with dealing with file sizes of point clouds generated in pix4d to create surfaces in civil3d. As I don't have pix4d, what is the best method to export a surface, point cloud, dtm points from pix4d to import into civil3d?
Pix4D can do some basic point classification between ground and non-ground points. Take the cloud into Global Mapper to further classify points to vegetation, bldgs., etc. To make a surface that C3D can easily manage, try to get point count down below 2 million. Use gridding options in Global Mapper to get there. Only grid from ground classified points. File format out of GM can be xyz, las, dem, csv, and a huge variety of others.
Global Mapper is the best choice for surfaces, created from LAS file. I create point clouds with ground based photogrammetry and aerial images, which contains more than 50-80 million points. Creation of high detailed surfaces in Civil 3D is very hard process, while Global Mapper do this in second.
