{"id":2800,"date":"2014-03-19T04:00:41","date_gmt":"2014-03-19T01:00:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/unitycoder.com\/blog\/?p=2800"},"modified":"2025-06-08T10:47:00","modified_gmt":"2025-06-08T07:47:00","slug":"asset-store-point-cloud-viewer-unity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unitycoder.com\/blog\/2014\/03\/19\/asset-store-point-cloud-viewer-unity\/","title":{"rendered":"[Asset Store] Point Cloud Viewer & Tools"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"unity_point_cloud_viewer\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Point Cloud Viewer & Tools for Unity.<\/p>\n

Asset Store link:<\/strong>https:\/\/assetstore.unity.com\/packages\/tools\/utilities\/point-cloud-viewer-and-tools-3-310385?aid=1101lGti<\/a><\/p>\n

Unity Forum Link:<\/strong> https:\/\/discussions.unity.com\/t\/released-point-cloud-viewer-tools\/534863<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

Update 2024: Rest of the post is quite old, better check the forum thread for latest updates!<\/p>\n

Main features:<\/strong>
\n– DX11 Point Cloud Viewer
\n– Single color and RGB point cloud shaders included (for both DX11 & non-dx11 modes)
\n– Supported import formats: XYZ, XYZRGB, CGO, ASC, CATIA ASC, PLY (ASC)
\n– Editor plugin#1: Point Cloud To Binary (saves data to custom binary format for faster reading)
\n– Editor plugin#2: Point Cloud To Unity Meshes (splits point cloud data into 65k meshes)
\n– Brekel Point Cloud Pro v2 binary file support (view & convert animated point clouds)
\n* Check pdf below for more details!<\/em><\/p>\n


\nMain limitations:<\/strong>
\n– Main viewer requires DX11 (does not work on Apple Macs)
\n– Can only display 1 cloud at a time (so you must combine clouds and filter them to have suitable data)
\n– If you use RGB colors, maximum is ~20million (instead of 40mil) *New<\/span><\/strong>: With Unity 5.1 tested loading 75million points (single color) ~10fps in editor..
\n– Current version loads the points at Start() function, you need to modify the viewer script if you want it to load them some other time
\n– There is no any “API”, just few normal unity c# scripts & shaders to display the points
\n– Not much error checking is done on imported files, if they are different from supported file formats, most likely it breaks<\/p>\n


\nDocumentation PDF:<\/strong>
\nPointCloudViewerTools_web13.pdf<\/a> *old version<\/p>\n


\nRoadmap\/future plans:<\/strong>
\n– Support for float RGB values (currently it expects int values 0-255)
\n– DX11 point size (if its possible to make it work)<\/del>
\n– New import formats
\n – Add touch screen flying controls for the mobile demo<\/del>
\n– Include webplayer compatible reader (instead of using System.IO) :<\/del> (*In v1.3)
\n– Support for point normals<\/del> (*New v1.3 import normals for PLY (ascii), only for cloud2mesh, not in DX11<\/em>)
\n– .LAS file format support (import)<\/del> (*in v1.8)
\n– .PTS file format support (import)<\/del> (*in v1.8)
\n– more.. (feel free to comment\/request)<\/p>\n


\nWishlist \/ Requests:<\/strong>
\n– DX11 Point Size<\/del>
\n– .E57 file format support *I have separate converter for this, contact with Invoice number.
\n– Support for point normals dx11 (need to somehow pack the normals into position or color values..)
\n– Support for .abc \/ .fbx \/ .obj formats
\n– Shaders for points + unity lights (pretty much needs normals, unless make it just distance based brightness)
\n– Clipping boxes\u00a0 \/ planes
\n– Taking measures *available as customized work (but starts to get slow with over 5-10mil. points)
\n– LOD (based on camera distance and\/or octree lods<\/a>)<\/p>\n

– Compressed or less precision binary format (smaller files)
\n– Oculus version of the pc demo scene<\/p>\n

Bugs:<\/strong>
\n – (14.4.2014): Mesh Converter: If point amount is less than “Vertices per mesh” amount, cloud meshes are not generated. This will be fixed in next update (or email me for manual fix) **Fix submitted to asset store 27.4.2014)<\/del><\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

Demos:<\/strong>
\nPC exe 2.5million points (dx11) : mediafire <\/a>| dropbox <\/a>
\nAndroid (.apk) 2.5 million points (non-dx11) : mediafire<\/a> | dropbox (<\/a>*60fps in Samsung Galaxy S4)
\niPhone5 : Doesnt seem to work properly, hangs, point sizes are wrong etc.. will test again with unity4.6 or 5..<\/p>\n

Tutorials:<\/strong>
\n(more tutorials, coming here later)<\/p>\n

Sample data download:<\/strong>
\nmanuscript : mediafire <\/a>| dropbox\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n