I am working on a better, faster and more automated process for creating surfaces in Cyclone using point cloud data.?ÿ This is my workflow I have developed so far, it is working pretty well.?ÿ If the ground is densely covered then Cyclone does a pretty good job of finding the ground even when a lot of trees are present.?ÿ It gets more tricky where the ground data is more sparse, it helps to clean some...
I developed a new semi-automated surface modeling workflow in Cyclone??
- Start with a new unified modelspace.
- Clean around the edges.
- Clean trees and other vertical items out in areas with sparse ground shots down to ground.?ÿ This is not necessary in the middle of the work area where the ground is densely covered with point cloud. Also the cleaning does not need to be extremely clean, a quick cleaning close to ground is sufficient.
- Pick a single point somewhere in the middle which is on the ground surface.
- Activate the command ??Set Plane Origin at Pick Point.? This sets the active reference plane to that point.
- Draw a polygonal fence around a small area.
- Create a layer (shift-L) for your points and make it active.
- Tools-->Points on Grid
- Enter a point number to start.?ÿ Cyclone crashes when I try to run it with a feature code entered but it??s not necessary anyway.
- Press Place Points.?ÿ If your area is too big it??ll say too many points. ?ÿIn that case make your fence smaller.?ÿ It seem to like a top down view with ortho mode selected (as opposed to perspective mode).
- Go have some coffee (don??t recommend whiskey because you??ll drain the bottle before the entire workflow is done).
- Lather-rinse-repeat until you whole site is covered.?ÿ It does a pretty good job of finding the ground in areas where the ground is densely covered even though there are trees and other stuff in the way.
- My project generated almost 43000 points.
- This generates vertexes.?ÿ Cyclone bogs way down because of all those vertexes.
- Go to Layers (shift-L) and highlight your layer and press Select.
- Wait a while, have some coffee.?ÿ Eventually the vertexes all highlight.
- Edit-->Copy
- File-->Export
- Export selected to an .XYZ text file. You don??t need point numbers or codes, just XYZ.
- In the Cyclone Explorer highlight your Project folder (under the blue database cylinder), right-click and import your XYZ file.
- Now you have a Scanworld with a point cloud which is your surface points.?ÿ Cyclone handles this a lot more efficiently than vertex points.
- This Scanworld may need some cleaning because the points on grid command isn??t perfect.?ÿ I did a quick rough cleaning to get rid of the really obvious clouds in the air and below ground.
- I prefer to select and copy my cleaned cloud to a new modelspace at this point.
- Create a surface mesh.?ÿ This will highlight your pyramids and holes in the ground. Countours can be helpful for this.
- Now I am doing a second more careful cleaning to get rid of points above or below the prevailing surface of the ground.?ÿ This goes really fast because the point cloud is small.?ÿ It will unify in about 5 seconds.
?ÿ
This process takes about a day instead of a week (or more when I blunder and forget to turn on all the point clouds) for a large point cloud area.
I'm glad I don't have to deal with point clouds.?ÿ I still remember when ordinary CAD stuff would bog down the available hardware, and it was so nice when the hardware finally caught up and blew past day-to-day CAD demands.?ÿ It sounds like point clouds have thrown you back into the bad old days.
GNSS processing is bad enough.?ÿ Projects involving hundreds of vectors still take a lot of time to choke through.
It takes the most powerful computer available to be efficient. Ideally I would like a computer that is completely free of internet connections or security but that isn't possible in our world at work.
The site is 1700 feet wide by 4000 feet long surveyed in 2.5 days by Lidar, control by GNSS. I had 60% of it cleaned to ground in two days but I blundered and killed it (a Cyclone unify oddity, forgot to turn off the slice view). That forced me to come up with a better, faster way. So some googling at home Wednesday night I came up with the points on grid tool which helps tremendously. It creates vertexes (points with numbers and codes) for export to CAD but I'm not sure if Civil3D can handle that many points. The other issue is I haven't figured out how to get Cyclone to export the point numbers. Typical Leica, all these little bugs, issues, and traps. I did figure out how to get the points on ground tool to work good then just convert it to a point cloud. Cyclone is way better than Civil3D on viewing 3D data especially when there is a lot of points.
I'm glad I don't have to deal with point clouds.?ÿ I still remember when ordinary CAD stuff would bog down the available hardware, and it was so nice when the hardware finally caught up and blew past day-to-day CAD demands.?ÿ It sounds like point clouds have thrown you back into the bad old days.
GNSS processing is bad enough.?ÿ Projects involving hundreds of vectors still take a lot of time to choke through.
Have you tried the new TBC, V4.00? The new GNSS engine is really much faster than my previous V2.90. A world of difference. What used to take half a day of processing baselines it handles it in 10mins. Computer used is still the same.?ÿ
Have you tried the new TBC, V4.00?
I haven't.?ÿ I don't have any static projects going on right now, so I don't feel a need to upgrade.?ÿ I think I'm at v3.6.?ÿ I'm not on a maintenance agreement, so an upgrade means shelling out cash that I'd rather not part with at the moment.
I created a surface mesh after I cleaned the point cloud.
What I didn't notice was Cyclone imported the point cloud XYZ file, assumed it is meters (Cyclone exported it correctly, as US Feet) then converted it to International Feet (the project settings are US Feet).
The fix is to change the XYZ extension to TXT then that forces Cyclone to use the import dialog where it is selected to Feet (US Survey), 3 columns,?ÿ make the column headings X Y Z, check space delimited, and import as a point cloud.?ÿ That seems to import unmolested by background conversion routines that Cyclone doesn't have the common decency to tell you it's doing.