DWG to Point Cloud

Rhino Rhino for Windows
1

Hi Guys,

New Rhino user (education purposes).

I’m wondering how to go from a DWG model (made in CAD) to a point cloud?

I read a few forums outside this and apparently it’s possible in Rhino. Obviously the reverse is common practice, but I’m wondering if anyone knows how to derive a point cloud from a 3D model.

Kind Regards,

McLaren

2

Hi
This is a very strange request without a context as to why you would want to do this.

What problem are you trying to solve by getting points from a file?

To answer your question, you can select everything (SelAll) and run ExtractPt to generate the points.
Then SelNone, SelPt, Export

3

Hi Duncan,

if your import is a mesh, try _ExtractPt and _PointCloud, this should even work for surfaces or polysurfaces if they have enough control points.

c.

4

Thank you very much John and Clement, these solutions work well.

I wanted to compare a 3D model with a laser scan point cloud (same building) using Cloudcompare.

Point comparisons tend to be the most raw/ unedited way of carrying out such analysis.

Thanks again,

McLaren

5

Be aware that some of the points are not on the surface or curves, they will be a Control Point locations. This might introduce error that isn’t really there.

You’re probably pretty safe coming from a DXF or DWG file sine there will be no NURBS surfaces or curves in it. Mesh objects will have points on the vertex corners.

6

And you can convert NURBS to meshes and then extract the points from that.