PTX

General

ContextCapture supports PTX format from Leica Cyclone.

All PTX point clouds are considered to have intensity information and so point clouds will always have the intensity attribute. Color information is detected if a point line has seven elements.

Static

Header length and point list lengths must be reliable. A missing line in the header or a missing point between two headers leads to a failed importation. However, a corrupted point line will be ignored.

Point coordinates is computed using scanner registered position as scanner location and the transformation matrix.

If the scanner position is provided from the user interface, the transformation matrix in the PTX header is still used to compute point coordinates. Autodetect position feature is not available for PTX.

LAS

General

ContextCapture supports LAS format 1.0, 1.1 and 1.2.

Color information is detected based on LAS Point data record format used. Point clouds will have a color attribute if the point format used is 2 or 3. Intensity attribute is detected if at least one point doesn’t have an intensity set to 0.

Static

LAS format doesn’t support scanner position information. When importing a static LAS, the user must provide a scanner location from the user interface or use the autodetect feature.

Mobile

The point clouds and the trajectory data are linked using timestamps. Therefore, LAS point data record format must be 1 or 3.

E57

General

ContextCapture support E57 format 1.0 and Leica E57 timebounds.

Color information is detected based on the E57 file header. If in the header, the point fields of blue color, red color and green color are set to true, the pointcloud will have color attribute. For intensity, the point field of intensity is used to set the intensity attribute.

Static

The position of scanners is read from the pose information of each E57 scans. If this information is missing, ContextCapture assumes the pose is set to the identity. Georeferenced static scans must have a pose information, as an identity pose doesn’t make sense for georeferenced point clouds.

If the scanner position is provided from the user interface or is autodetected, the pose information in the E57 scans is still used to compute point coordinates.

Mobile

The point clouds and the trajectory data are linked using timestamps. Therefore, at least one E57 scan must have a timestamp field. If the E57 scan as an acquisitionStart structure, the value is used as an offset for the timestamp stored for each point. If the E57 has a timeBounds structure and a timeMinimum structure, the timeMinimum value is used as an offset for the timestamp stored for each point, overriding the acquisitionStart structure.

Trajectory data

Trajectory information is required to import mobile scans. A trajectory file must contain a list of the scanner positions associated with timestamps. The positions must be provided in the same spatial reference system than the point cloud coordinates, and trajectory timestamps must overlap with points timestamps.

Trajectory example:

Time;X;Y;Z
189321.10;15.96;-52.12;133.68
189321.20;15.21;-51.21;134.01
189321.30;14.75;-50.37;134.35
189321.40;14.10;-49.50;134.31
189321.10;13.78;-48.69;134.43
...

PLY

General

ContextCapture supports general PLY format and NavVis PLY format.

In ContextCapture, PLY format is considered a mobile format. No trajectory data is needed, but a normal information is required for each point.

Property names for normal must be nx, ny, nz. Property names for color must be red, green, blue.

POD General

ContextCapture supports POD format, the Bentley pointcloud format. Currently it is only possible to import it for static scans with a unique source.

Static

The user must specify the location of the scan for a specific POD file, or use the autodetect feature in order for the import to be successful.