Point cloud

This command allows to import a points file (.pts, .xyz, asc or .e57) into a Part or Assembly document.

Creation stages / Use:

Select the Construction > Point cloud... command from the drop-down menu.

Select the plane that will contain X and Y axes.
Select an origin.
Select the horizontal direction.

These elements are used to define the frame to be used to create the points.

Specify the unit of the file containing the coordinates of the points.
Select the file containing points.

The points are stored in the Point Clouds folder of the entities tree.
When Visualization > Picking filters > Facetted Shape Vertex Selection is enabled, it is possible to select points for taking measurements.
Point cloud type entities are supported by the Visualization > Cut commands.
Note that a single .e57 file can contain several point clouds. Importing with conversion imports all point clouds, whereas the Construction > Point Cloud... command imports only the first point cloud.

The Section command available in contextual menu on a point cloud allows to create a section on it.

Available options:

Point reduction factor:

This option allows to reduce the number of points to be imported. This reduction is not significant when the amount of points present in the file is small (less than 1000 points). A reduction factor of 2 on a file containing 6 points will not always give 3 points.

This reduction factor cannot be higher than 20.

Select the Refresh button before validating the dialog so that the modification is taken into account

This reduction factor will be automatically adjusted by TopSolid to tend towards the creation of 1M points in the document.

Example, for a file of 10M points, at the first loading TopSolid will modify the reduction cursor to 10 to obtain 1M points.

However, as the reduction factor is limited to 20, the first time a file of 40M points is loaded it will obtain 2M points.

Offset:

This option allows to apply an offset to modify the position of the points in the document. This offset can be set indifferently to X, Y and Z.

The scale factor will multiply each of the coordinates by the value entered.

Select the Refresh button before validating the dialog so that the modifications are taken into account.

Modifications / Additional information:

Informations : This section displays information about the file being imported (this section will be empty when editing an existing point cloud).
File name.
Count of points to import (this number varies according to the reduction factor used).
Dimensions of the enclosing box containing the points.
Coordinates of the box center.