Note : This guide requires the Rhino 9 WIP. This is a work in progress meaning that it is meant for testing and should not be used for project critical production work. The Rhino 9 WIP is available to anyone that owns Rhino 8..
SplitPointCloud command can be used to edit point clouds. Use splitpointcloud to draw a line to split a cloud into two separate clouds.
Please give me the option to clip by polyline, open or closed.
Please give me the option to clip volumetrically by BREP.
Please give me the option to join two point clouds.
Today, methods exist to visualise billions of point clouds using octrees without limit. It would be nice to incorporate something like that into Rhino. At least support LAS or LAZ files with display options such as color, intensity, normals, classification, and all other attributes LAS supports. Point clouds are very important today.
It would also be possible to split by normal, with any normal facing the observer one one side, and any normal opposite of the observer on the other output.
In general, the goal of the tool is to be fast and to allow quick decision-making. For fine-tuning, it’s always possible to use a scripting languiage such as Grasshopper.
Clip is something different than split. Right now, we have no clipping options. First priority would be the clip by polyline. Every software uses point clouds that need clipping by a polyline. Clipping planes are not always the best approach.
Using Grasshopper, I can clip by polyline, but again, I should bake it every time to get the result I want to snap to the point cloud.
No clip is not like trim or split. It’s like rhino clipping planes, it doesn’t modify the cloud as split or trim does. It just hides a part of it inside or outside the polyline (you should have an option for that).
About where this polyline should be drawn. It would definitely be a 2D polylines, with the ability to draw in perspective views. That would be achieved by setting the cplane to the view when starting the command and restoring it to the previous one when ending the command. Screen coordinates would be affected by zooming in and out, correct? So it’s not the best approach not to be able to zoom while drawing the polyline. The same should also apply to the current splitting command.
Thanks for clarifying this. Display-only commands such as the “clip” you mention follow different logic than editing commands. @wim’s addition to the Clipping Plane wish list should help. In general, do clipping planes work for you with point clouds (except for the zoom logic you mention)?
Yes, they work. But working with point clouds needs isolating parts of them. Clipping planes now have custom depth. Custom width and custom height would be very beneficial. But for point clouds, clipping by a polyline is a must. There is a plugin in Grasshopper already doing that, but I have to bake the cloud all the time to model on top of it. A lot of extra steps.
