Hello all,
i’m looking for a way to get the 3d mosaic into civil 3d for line work and modeling, mainly the modeling aspect of it all. After processing in pix4d, the mosaic and 3d rendering is great, I would like to bring that 3d aspect into civil 3d or Revit for building a 3d model using cad components. I am very familiar with 3d laser scanning and its techniques to get us what we want, but found that I’m not quite getting 3d modeling capabilities for buildings from pix4d, mainly the clarity and point densification in a point cloud with picture overlay.
I’ve processed the data from the flight after pix4d with the point cloud and brought it into autocad recap, the clarity is just not there to trace or outline for modeling purposes.
anyone have any ideas on the 3d mosaic aspect into autocad to perform this?
Hi Rick,
I do not have any experience with Revit. I found these posts/articles/ that could be interesting for you:
How to import a .las file into Autodesk Revit
Export Dsm File to Revit
When you mention 3D mosaic, what is exactly the output you refer to? Is it the Point Cloud? Is it the 3D Textured Mesh? What file format are you looking for?
Here you can find a webinar about how to import Pix4D outputs in other software (see min 7:30 for AutoCAD Civil)
Hope it helps 
What is the 3D mosaic? You can use a Pix4D point cloud the same as a LiDAR point cloud if that is what you mean.
It is possible but not easy to get a clean and dense point cloud in Pix4D. I have a process to do it on towers with CloudWorx for Revit. Check out my website, www.nhiae.com, and shoot me an email, Adam.Jordan@nhiae.com so we can discuss this in detail.
Christina & Adam,
Thank you for your feedback. I am very intuitive about importing point clouds into civil 3d or revit and how they are handled, but I didn’t like the quality that it produced and maybe I’m just use to 3d laser scanning where the point cloud is more densified with the image overlay.
so what I’m looking for is the quality of the point cloud AND textured mesh overlay as you would see it in pix4d but utilizing that clarity or density into civil 3d or Revit with the capablility to rotat that in autocad for modeling… maybe the answer is going back to the processing of the file with a more densified sampling?
hope this clarifies what I’m looking for.
Thank you for all your help as I’ve done much research on this and found very little info.Yes there are some webinars coming up that we have noted in our schedule to be a part of. Thanks for the heads up on that.
Rick,
My company has developed a solution that makes photogrammetry the same or higher density than LiDAR…a bit more noisy than laser scanning but still able to extract geometry in Cyclone or CloudWorx.
I have no use for the mesh because it isn’t accurate but the point cloud works great in the workflow to do structural engineering analysis. Out of the 1,000’s of possible permutations for this solution, I have found just ONE that works…so your findings are very typical but as I said, we can discuss more via email as my company must protect its trade secrets.
Good luck finding info on the level of detail you desire as I have been developing this technology for 2 years while nobody else has even thought about trying it. The technology is available but it has taken me this long to find the needle in the haystack because no hardware or software suppliers have this as their goal.
Rick, this would be easier to handle via email…something in my reply is “pending approval” so the forum won’t display it yet.
Hi Rick and Adam,
I am wondering what is the file format that you use from laser scans? Is it a .las file?
As for the density of this file, you can experiment with the density optionsin Pix4Dmapper.
Please keep in mind that High point density may result in 4 times more processing time and RAM than optimal density.
Hi Christina,
yes, use the export option as “LAS” file. if you bring into cad, it is easier to bring into recap, then xref the recap file into cad.
you can also register the FLS (scan files) in recap, but I would recommend a program like trimble realworks prior when using the scanner.
adam,
thank you for your input on this subject, I can contact you later via email on your solution.
Sorry, I’ve been busy, so getting back to my question the best way I can…
When pix4d produces the virtual point cloud, the quality viewing it is great, I’m trying to get THAT quality of point cloud
Into cad.
When exporting the pix4d point cloud and settings for an LAS, Dog files, the point cloud is not as dense and the resolution is not the same quality as pix4d.
I post 2 images later, one from pix4d Nd the other from cad or recap.
Any help would be appreciated.
Thank you,
If the number of points in the point cloud exceeds the maximum limit of the program, the point cloud might appear decimated, as the article on Autodesk documentation says
https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/civil-3d/troubleshooting/caas/sfdcarticles/sfdcarticles/Not-all-scan-points-are-used-when-creating-a-Recap-Point-Cloud.html?st=large%20point%20cloud
I found this link https://uscad.com/blog/point-clouds-2-hybrid/ , could be helpful but it dates back to 2016. It refers to one of the solutions mentioned by Autodesk documentation “Convert some of the points to a mesh or surface”.
Hope it helps.
Christina/Alice,
We just did a UAV photogrammetry of a building for our client an architectural firm who is using the point cloud image to construct a 3D model of the building using Revit. I noticed in this blog that Pix4D does not seem to have a good grip on the requirement for Revit inputs! The same questions seen to have gone around in circles from way back in 2017 to now.
Normally the request is to generate a point cloud model in .las, obj or xyz format, however, my client said he was unable to construct the model with the file we provided.
Reading further through some of the modeling articles for Revit there was a .pcg format that seems to work with Revit, but I cannot file this in the Pid4D processing software.
Is there any advise that you can provide in bridging this gap?
Regards,
Phillip
Hi Phillip,
Unfortunately, Pix4Dmapper does not export .pcg files and we do not plan to export this format any time soon.
From our experience with CAD products, you need to convert the .las or .laz to .rcs or .rcp using ReCap and then insert it to Revit.
Maybe other community users have different workflows/experiences to share