Uploading Mobile Laser Scans

Created by John Tapia, Modified on Fri, 28 Jun at 11:32 PM by Nicholas Czarnick

Mobile laser scanning devices produce ‘unstructured’ point clouds by continuously scanning the space along one or multiple walking path(s). While scanning, those devices also capture spherical images, which can be fully spherical (360-degree horizontal) or partially spherical. The registration software sold with the device will allow you to align one or multiple scanning sessions and to produce a single unstructured point cloud using SLAM technology (SLAM = Simultaneous Localization And Mapping).

Uploading this resulting unstructured point cloud to Cintoo requires the installation and use of Cintoo Connect 2.x or higher. Check this section to see how to install the latest Cintoo Connect version.

Cintoo Connect will then process the unstructured point clouds and ‘restructure’ them automatically.

‘Restructuring’ means that Cintoo Connect will create 3D scan positions as if your mobile data was coming from tripod-mounted static scanners, thus facilitating the navigation experience.
The resolution of those newly created 3D scans is computed automatically based on the resolution of your source unstructured point cloud.
There is no compromise on point cloud accuracy or density when using this process.
Those newly created 3D scans will count as static scans in your scan capacity.
You may download and export your newly created 3D scans from Cintoo Cloud as a unified or structured point cloud as you would do with your static scan data.
You may of course merge static scans and mobile scans in Cintoo Cloud and navigate between them as long as they share the same coordinate system.

With Cintoo Connect 2.x, the following mobile devices or formats are supported:

In terms of data types, Cintoo Connect 2.x supports the following unstructured formats:

Point cloud file formats: E57, LAS, LAZ, and PLY.
Scanning path file formats: Generic CSV, GeoSLAM TXT, NavVis CSV and Viametris XYZ.
- With sub-sampling for the scanning scanning path positions.
Optional scanning path geolocation: NavVis XML file.

For other devices or other types of unstructured data, please contact support@cintoo.com.