Drone survey: import your pointcloud with correct georeference

[Carol Reznor]

When you import a point cloud as is - without centering it on the internal origin as to keep it in its geolocation, you will get a point cloud that is visually corrupted, as in, it will have ugly lines... and the x,y coordinates say 0 while you can see in the rulers that is not the case...

Some time ago I reported this as a bug. I think it still is, as this should work properly so not to loose the correct georeferencing and have a nice workable point cloud.

 

The solution I found for this now is

1. import the geotiff generated by the drone (using the settings of the geotiff - units and EPSG)

then

2. adjust the internal and user origin so they coincide with the midpoint of the geotiff 

and finally

3. import the point cloud ticking the box 'Center Import on Internal Origin'

 

So - you need to export a geotiff and a point cloud from your drone to be able to use the pointcloud in GIS

 

RESULT of 1-2-3

Edited April 17, 2024 by Carol Reznor

[Tom W.]

8 minutes ago, Carol Reznor said:

When you import a point cloud as is - without centering it on the internal origin as to keep it in its geolocation, you will get a point cloud that is visually corrupted, as in, it will have ugly lines... 

Some time ago I reported this as a bug.

 

This is a massive pain. I submitted a bug about it as well. VB-202892. It's crazy that you have to jump through these kinds of hoops in order to import a point cloud into a georeferenced file.

 

13 minutes ago, Carol Reznor said:

The solution I found for this now is

1. import the geotiff generated by the drone (using the settings of the geotiff - units and EPSG)

then

2. adjust the internal and user origin so they coincide with the midpoint of the geotiff 

and finally

3. import the point cloud ticking the box 'Center Import on Internal Origin'

 

Is Step 4 to Set User Origin to match the Georeferencing coordinate system?

[Carol Reznor]

3 minutes ago, Tom W. said:

Is Step 4 to Set User Origin to match the Georeferencing coordinate system?

@Tom W.

 

That is a good practice I find and my personal preference to indeed set it (the user origin) back to match the CRS - especially if you export to DWG because otherwise the DWG will read what the rulers say and import incorrectly ( check the box export dwg with georeferencing puts a Geographic marker in the file in autocad) ... BUT for architects... if you want to export to IFC you shouldn't as IFC only works with 1 origin, so in that case they (internal and user origin) should stay in one place.

 

hoop hoop hoop 🙂

[Carol Reznor]

So... in a following project... this seems to not work as the orthophoto and the pointcloud are NOT exactly the same. They cover a different area so the midpoint of both objects is not the same... 
Back to square one... no good way to georeference a pointcloud. 

[Tom W.]

1 minute ago, Carol Reznor said:

no good way to georeference a pointcloud. 

 

I finally filed a bug about this a couple of months back but not had a response yet... 

VB-202892

[Anders Blomberg]

I've also filed one and heard back som time ago so there might be light at the end of the tunnel for this one.

[Tom W.]

1 minute ago, Anders Blomberg said:

I've also filed one and heard back som time ago so there might be light at the end of the tunnel for this one.

 

Ok cool that's hopeful what did they say...?

[Anders Blomberg]

They're "working on some improvements" so I tried nudging them into some improvement on this one 🙂

[zeno]

On 5/22/2024 at 8:57 AM, Carol Reznor said:

So... in a following project... this seems to not work as the orthophoto and the pointcloud are NOT exactly the same. They cover a different area so the midpoint of both objects is not the same... 
Back to square one... no good way to georeference a pointcloud. 

 

Hello

there is some update on this direction?

Thanks

[Anders Blomberg]

@zeno Not as far as I know. Maybe @Katarina Ollikainen could elaborate somewhat on the issue?

[Katarina Ollikainen]

@zeno, I've contacted the engineers working on this and will leave an update as soon as I know more about the progress.

 

[Christiaan]

On 1/9/2025 at 4:35 AM, Katarina Ollikainen said:

@zeno, I've contacted the engineers working on this and will leave an update as soon as I know more about the progress.

 

Hi @Katarina Ollikainen, do you have any progress to report?

Also curious about this one which also remains unresolved:
https://forum.vectorworks.net/index.php?/topic/60243-point-cloud-scaling/

 

[Katarina Ollikainen]

@Christiaan, Yes, the point cloud georeferencing is actively being implemented, right now. We're doing a lot of work on georeferencing as a whole, and the point cloud import is one of the parts. This will resolve the issue with the import location.

 

This also ties into the other discussion about working in plan rotation or georeferencing the file. Georeferencing is a unifying 'translator' for collaboration - if you have your file georeferenced, you can work together with many other file formats, and the files just 'fit together.' It's not so much about the internal Vectorworks workflows,  but more about how you share your work with other parties.

[Christiaan]

48 minutes ago, Katarina Ollikainen said:

@Christiaan, Yes, the point cloud georeferencing is actively being implemented, right now. We're doing a lot of work on georeferencing as a whole, and the point cloud import is one of the parts. This will resolve the issue with the import location.

 

This also ties into the other discussion about working in plan rotation or georeferencing the file. Georeferencing is a unifying 'translator' for collaboration - if you have your file georeferenced, you can work together with many other file formats, and the files just 'fit together.' It's not so much about the internal Vectorworks workflows,  but more about how you share your work with other parties.

That's great, thanks Katarina. 

 

48 minutes ago, Katarina Ollikainen said:

It's not so much about the internal Vectorworks workflows, but more about how you share your work with other parties.

And you don't think that working in a rotated view, or having one file with the site model set to north up the page + building model files referenced into that achieves this?