Import Point Clouds into Civil 3D (3:41 min)

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So in this session, we're going to look at bringing a point

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cloud into Autodesk civil 3D.

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So the first thing to remember is that point

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clouds within civil 3D.

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You have to file formats you have to use and RCP or an RC

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s So you must first convert your files.

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If they're already not in ECP and RC as maybe

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they're an l.a. file.

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Those must be converted inside recap pro

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and then brought into Civil 3D.

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Once you're in Civil 3D, it's a very simple process.

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You'll look at the Insert tab, you'll

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look at the point cloud panel of the Insert tab

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and we'll attach a point cloud.

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So let's move on over to civil 3D

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and look how easy it is to attach a point cloud.

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So I'm now in Civil 3D.

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Two things that you want to look at.

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You want to first make sure that your coordinate system is

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set correctly.

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So we're going to come to the setting tab of toe space.

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I mean, a right click on my drawing

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and go to edit drawing settings on the units and zone tab.

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I'm going to choose my state or most simply type in if I have

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this known coordinate system.

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What this should be.

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And I'm going to simply select.

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OK So we've set our coordinate system,

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the next thing we want to look at is the unit a type in units

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and we want to look at the insertion scale.

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So right here on the drawing units dialog box.

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We want to change this from feet.

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To US survey feet prior to importing our point cloud.

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So change that to us survey feet.

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Select OK.

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Then I'm going to go to the Insert tab.

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I'm going to go to the point cloud panel

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and select attach OK.

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We're going to browse to the correct directory.

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And we're going to look for the ECP or the RC file.

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So RCP RC s I am a simply select the Redtail RCP

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I'm going to hit open on the insertion point

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I want to de select specify on screen,

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it's going to come in correct.

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Per our coordinate zone.

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And I must simply select OK.

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So our point cloud is now inside civil 3D.

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I'm going to select that point cloud and a few things

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that we can do here.

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We can change the visual aspect of it.

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There's a scan colors maybe we want

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to look at classification at that point

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cloud has been classified.

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So you can see here our point clouds

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been classified ground versus non ground buildings

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and so forth.

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And turn that back to scan colors.

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We can also crop this out.

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So if we want to focus on a certain area,

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we can simply choose to either crop a vA rectangular polygon

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or circular into a polygon and I'm

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going to just window the area that we want to focus on.

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And any time I can select the point cloud.

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And I can crop it.

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I can invert it.

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So it goes opposite of what I originally cropped

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and I can get back to the original point cloud.

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So bringing in a point cloud into Civil 3D

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is very simple, very straightforward.

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We converted it to an RCP file and we

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inserted that point cloud from the Insert tab point cloud

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panel and select it.

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Attach we we're now ready to start

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extracting geometry and creating surfaces from this point cloud.