3D scans of existing building-creating model of existing building

Hello Rhino comunity,

I am architect and I am trying to find best workflow how to model existing buildings from 3D scans. I need this model as base for new architectural changes.

Scanning existing building is now the most efective and most precision way how to get informations for new model. Unfortunately Importing point of clouds to Rhino is not possible becouse file will be too heavy and it will not be possible to work with that.

Is sketchup is this plugin: Point Clouds to 3D Model Software - Point Cloud 3D Model - SketchUp | SketchUp which works well for creating new model based on scanned data (It imports point clouds as reference to new file where you model it and it don´t loads heavy data to new file, it also offers you to hide/ show you parts of the clouds and shows you how far you are with new geometry from scanned data)

Is there any simillar way (workflow/ tool/ plugin) how to model new clean model using scanned informations?

If not, I wish that we found way how to do this in new version of Rhino. This is one of biggies issues which I see in Rhino now as architect working on reconstructions existing builidings.

Thank you for your answers. :pray:

Read this as a tip how to improve Rhino for architects.
Vaclav

How efficient is the pointcloud data? How many points?

Rhino 8 imports pointcloud data. However, I think ideally you don’t import point clouds but cleaned up triangulated meshes…

How heavy are your files and how much RAM does your computer have?

As a reference, for Artec Studio postprocessing it is suggested to have 3 x more RAM than the project size

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Importing point clouds into Rhino is possible. I routinely import point clouds with over ten million points and associated textured meshes, and then work with them. With much larger point clouds and meshes the response slows but Rhino is still usable.

It is important to import point cloud objects, not a set of individual points.

My usual workflow is to import the point clouds and meshes into one or more files, and orient and scale the point clouds and meshses as needed. Then I use Workflow (available in Rhino for Windows, not available in Rhino for Mac) with the point cloud and mesh files as references and model in a separate file.

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I import point clouds in .ply format and meshes in .obj format.

What file formats are you trying to import?

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HI guyes. thank you for your answers! It helped me a lot! It is working now well as you saied. Point cloud shouldn´t be bigger than 300Mb. If you attach this separate file of pointcloud data with worksession to new one, it will work for you with no problems.
I have imported point clouds to Rhino in E57. Prescision of source data is enought about 1-2cm. Tell that to the person who is doing scans for you.

Vasek