Best practices to convert and upload georeferenced point clouds to the Reality Management service for consumption in iTwins.

Prerequisites

You will need:

• A georeferenced point cloud in one of those formats:
  • ASTM E57 (.e57)
  • ASCII Text (.txt)
  • Bentley POD (.pod)
  • Comma-separated Values (.csv)
  • Laser exchange format (.las)
  • LASzip exchange format (.laz)
  • Orbit Point Cloud (.opc)
  • Polygon File Format (.ply)
  • Points Format (.pts)
  • Scene Layer Package (.slpk)
  • XYZ Format (.xyz)
• Metadata about the point cloud’s Coordinate Reference System (CRS) and Vertical Coordinate System (VCS)
• One of the following products installed on your machine:
  • iTwin Capture Import & Upload
  • iTwin Capture Manage & Extract (license required)

Steps

1. Convert your georeferenced point cloud to a format that is supported by iTwin

1.1. Open iTwin Capture Import & Upload Tool or iTwin Capture Manage & Extract

1.2. In the application window’s upper-right corner, click the Tools icon and select Convert

Tip: If you have more than one point cloud, the Convert tool will create one output for each input. If you prefer to group all input point clouds into a single output, you must select Optimize instead of the Convert tool.

1.3. Click the Point Cloud tab: 

1.4. In the Source section:

1.4.1. Select the point cloud(s) on your computer that you want to convert

1.4.2. Select the CRS that corresponds to the metadata of your point cloud(s)

Tip: Additional CRS and VCS definitions can be obtained and installed from this link

1.5. In the Target Options section, select the 3DTILES format

1.6. In the Target section:

1.6.1. Select the location on your computer where you want to save the converted point cloud

1.6.2. Always select the EPSG:4978 CRS for the 3DTILES target format

1.7. In the Convert or Optimize section, click the Start button to initiate the conversion

2. Control the quality of the converted point cloud

2.1. Select the Map 3D (GL) tab at the top of the application's viewport

2.2. In the left sidebar, toggle ON the display of the converted point cloud

2.3. Use the viewer’s navigation tools to visually assess the quality of the converted point cloud

2.4. Turn ON the display of the BingMaps-Aerial background map to validate the converted point cloud’s geolocation

2.5. Use the Measure tools to validate the converted point cloud’s geolocation against known survey points

3. Upload the converted point cloud to Reality Management

3.1. In the application window’s upper-right corner, click the Manage icon and select Reality Data Management

3.2. In the iTwin section, click the Connect button and use the Search iTwins list to select an iTwin to upload the converted point cloud to

Tip: You can type in the Search iTwins list to filter the list of available iTwins.

3.3. In the Action section, select the New Upload option

3.4. In the Local Resource Origin section, select the Directory option

3.5. In the File Selection section:

3.5.1. Click the – Choose Data Type – list and select Cesium 3D Tiles (json)

3.5.2. Toggle ON the Include subfolders checkmark

3.5.3. Click the Browse button and select the .json file in the folder where the converted point cloud was created

3.6. In the Upload section, click the Start Now button to initiate upload of the selected point cloud

Tip: If you are using the iTwin Capture Manage & Extract product, you can batch upload multiple point clouds. To do so, click the Delegate to Task Manager button instead of Strat Now in the previous step. You will be able to initiate the upload of multiple point clouds from the Task Manager in the application's lower panel.