About Working With Point Clouds

Once a point cloud is attached to a drawing, you can modify it, use it as a guideline for drawing, change its display, or apply a color mapping to distinguish different features.

You can modify an unlocked point cloud in a number of ways.

• Filter unneeded points by clipping. Create one or more clipping boxes to show only the most relevant areas of the point cloud. Drag the clipping boundaries to change the display. Turn off or invert the clipping filters as you work.
  
• Modify point cloud density. Manage program performance and visual noise by increasing or decreasing the number of visible points.
  
• Standard editing operations. Cut, copy, paste, move, scale, rotate, stretch, and erase a point cloud.
• Edit properties. Change general properties such as color, and layer in the Properties window. Modify the insertion point, rotation, and scale. Turn locking and clipping on or off, and control whether the color is derived from the source or the current color settings.
• Use components as a reference when drawing. Turn on the Node object snap and snap to individual points as you draw. (The program snaps to the closest point relative to the viewpoint of the drawing.)

  You can also snap to the insertion point.

• Use color stylization. Color stylization helps you analyze features within the point cloud. You can retain the original scan colors or specify color stylizations that are based on objects, point orientations (normals), or intensity.
  

  For point cloud files that inherit intensity values, intensity stylization helps distinguish between features such as foliage and buildings. Use different color schemes such as Spectrum for more complex images or Grayscale for simpler visualization.

  You can use color mapping on both locked and unlocked point clouds.

  You can print a point cloud and retain the color stylizations in all visual styles except for 2D Wireframe and Wireframe.