V-Ray and *.XYZ point clouds

[Sbrusse]

Hi,

We are doing a pretty heavy project using Reality Capture for photogrammetry.
We shot about 2100 stills on a 5Ds (8688x5792) of Sydney city through a heli. Raw Jpeg alone weight 57 Go.

We will most likely not be able to convert the result data to mesh as it will be way to heavy, but we might be able to export a xyz point cloud.

We don't want to change anything to the raw data coming out from RC, just load it in max and render.

Does VRay support point clouds and more specifically xyz point clouds?

Can VRay render point clouds or should we use something else?

Thanks
Stan

[vlado]

You have several options:

a) Write the point cloud to an Alembic file and render it with VRayProxy;
b) Write a .prt file, convert to a .vrmesh file with ply2vrmesh and render it with VRayProxy;
c) Load a .rcs or .rcp file in 3ds Max 2017 through the PointCloud object, which V-Ray can render directly.

Best regards,
Vlado

[Sbrusse]

Great news, Thanks Vlado!

[chriserskine]

I think you'll find its just as much work to do point cloud than mesh.

its not like photoscan where you get point cloud then mesh. you just build a mesh. then from that you can export mesh or point clouds.

you just need to use simplify before exporting from rc.

and/or export parts and covert each of those to a vray proxy.

[Sbrusse]

Hey Vlado,
Now that I have my *.XYZ file, any hint on how to do either point A or B?
saving to rcp or rcs seems complicated, I load the can in Recap 360 and the process doesn't move a inch.

Will option A or B read the point cloud colors from the file? I'm afraid that the VrayProxy wont load the colors and only render the wire color or the mtl applied, if that's the case, it seems I'm stuck

[vlado]

Can you show me the format of the XYZ file?

Best regards,
Vlado