Carlson Point Cloud: Step-by-Step

Tutorial Setup

The following is an introductory tutorial for Carlson Point Clouds. If you wish to follow along with the tutorial and use the same Scan files, you can download them from the Carlson website at http://update.carlsonsw.com/tutorials/Carlson_Office.laz.  

These files aren't required, however, and you can follow along with any set of scans that have proper target points and control points.

Project Setup

Work done in Carlson's Point Cloud module is done on a per-project basis. To create a new project, you must first have a CAD drawing open in AutoCAD or IntelliCAD. To load the Point Cloud menu structure, click on the Lightning Bolt icon, or load it through the menus by going to Settings ⇒ Carlson Menus ⇒ Point Clouds Menu.

This will display the menu structure for Point Clouds. Now select Point Clouds ⇒ Project Manager. Then select New for a New project. Select the file path where you want it stored, enter in a filename and then click on Save.

Your initial project should look like the following image. In the tree structure you will see your Project with various defaults.


The program will attempt a recovery in the case of an error, but it is still a good idea to Save often using the Save button at the top of the Project Tab. 

For more information see the PointCloud Project Manager entry. 

Cloud Import

Let's begin by importing a Cloud. 


Right click on Clouds ⇒ Import ⇒ LIDAR.  Find and select the TutorialData.laz file, or use any other .las or .laz file.


The program will ask if you want to convert units.  This data is in feet, so if you want to work in Metric, select the third option.  Otherwise leave this as "None" and click OK. 

For more information see Import Cloud. 


Clean Cloud

Many clouds which are imported from the scanner or from the scanner manufacturer's software contain unnecessary points which can be removed. 


Right-click on the newly-imported Cloud and select Clean. 


For this type of scan, there are more points than necessary close to the scanner, so we remove them via the "Remove Duplicated Points" method. 

For this Cloud, we want to make sure that the "Remove Isolated Points" method is not enabled. 

For more information see Clean Cloud. 

View Cloud

A new Cloud will appear.  Double-click on the new Cloud in the Project Tree or right-click and go to View. 


This Cloud has color in it so we will choose Color: Direct for our color mode.  If this viewing mode is not available it usually means that the Cloud does not have color in it. 

For more information, see Scenes. 


For this screenshot, the Orbit has been displayed (via the Viewer Settings section of the Project Settings Manager). 

By default, a left-click-and-drag within the bounds of the Orbit will change the y-angle of the scene, relative to the red pivot point. 

A left-click-and-drag outside of the Orbit will rotate the scene relative to the z-axis and the pivot point. 

A middle-click-and drag will pan the scene. 

The scrollwheel can be used to zoom. 

Virtual Survey

To enter the Create Point mode, select Point under Create on the Action Tab of the Project Manager. 

PointCloud will read your current .fld Code Table into a dialog which allows you to graphically select the code to apply to the next point.  This dialog can be accessed via the Code button. 
If the Code Table dialog is empty you may need to use the Pick FLD File button at the top of the dialog to populate the data. 

You may want to change the Snap Mode depending on what you are attempting to shoot a point of. 


In this example we will select the Low Edge snap type in order to create some points for the bottom of the curb.  The Snap Radius should be changed from 0.25 to 0.5 feet (if you are using meters, use a Snap Radius of 0.15 instead). 

The code to use for this will vary depending on your code table, but it is important to pay attention to the Entity Type, as this controls whether a selected point shows up as an isolated point or as part of a polyline. 

When the red pick dot appears at the bottom of the curb, hold down the Ctrl key and click the left mouse button to create a point.  The program will automatically label this point as the start of the line and subsequent points with the same code continuing the line, until you end the line with End Linework or Ctrl-E. 

Sending to CAD

After you are done with the Virtual Survey you may want to add the created points to your current CAD drawing. 

Return to the Project Tab and find the entry for Coordinate Points. 


To directly edit the points or view their coordinates you can right-click and Edit, or the editor window can also be reached by double-click. 

Right-clicking gives a few more options: 

Field-to-Finish will use your Carlson F2F settings for styles and colors when sending to CAD. 

Draw will simply send the points to CAD as points, based on the settings of the chosen Layer. 

For more information see Coordinate Points. 


Mesh Creation

TIN files work best with about 1,000,000 or less points, and in most cases where they are used, this is more than enough points to be useful.  So it can be helpful to reduce the number of points in a Cloud before creating a Mesh. 

First, right-click on the already-cleaned Cloud file in the Project tree and go to Properties (this is the bottom entry in the right-click menu). 


Here you can see the number of points in the current Cloud so you know how many need to be removed. 

Right-click on the Cloud again and select Resample. 


We are using a step size of 2 because we have approximately 2 million points, and having already Cleaned the Cloud we assume the density is already relatively even. 

Now that we have created a more manageable Cloud, we are ready to create a Mesh. 



It's usually best to leave the "Normal" as (0.0, 0.0, 1.0), straight up, as that is what most other functions expect from a Mesh. 

The maximum edge length should be a few times longer than the normal distance between points in your Cloud.  The incident angle controls how tilted a triangle in the Mesh can be relative to the Normal.  In this Cloud, setting this below 90 will cut off the sides of buildings. 

To export this Mesh as a Carlson TIN, right-click on its entry in the Project Tree and choose "Export TIN". 



Now the data can be used in other functions which work on triangulated data. 

This completes the tutorial, but this is only as small sample of the functions in Carlson PointCloud. 

If you need help, please contact support@carlsonsw.com.