3D Scanning for Advanced Manufacturing, Design, and Construction

Chapter 5 Post-Processing

5.1 INTRODUCTION

Since the advent of scanning systems in the 1990s the volume of data acquired by scanning instruments has often been greater than the processing capacity of most computer systems. As the years progressed computer storage capacity and processing speeds increased substantially. Software written specifically for point cloud management helped to overcome some of the processing limitations. However, as scanners evolved their data evolved as well, producing point cloud files recording millions of points and reaching multiple gigabytes in size.

Today’s computers have a level of processing speed unimaginable ten years ago. Along with considerable improvements in graphics cards, computers can now routinely handle large graphic files. Many of the computer’s improvements have been due to the demand for high-speed gaming computers, capable of handling large, constantly changing graphic files. This has been an asset for those working with point cloud data since processing and using point clouds involves constant regeneration of the screen image.

Data acquisition speeds have increased and point clouds captured for large projects are routinely hundreds of millions of points, or even more. A point cloud file for an entire factory could be several terabytes worth of data, the point cloud of a smaller project could be hundreds of megabytes. Aside from state-of-the-art technology within a computer, to process point cloud data one needs a powerful software ...