Didier Bur,

I'm a new and relatively inexperienced user of SU, my introduction is in the newbie forum.

First of all. I Just tried your cloud tools and it's really good. Thank you for sharing.

I'd like to pick your brains a little, do you know of any other point cloud tools or tools for manipulating the meshes created from point clouds. I would be particularly interested in a tool which could produce a best fit surface from
a number of selected meshes and perhaps report on the fit residuals i.e difference between the best fit surface and the
individual points.It would be particularly good if the tool enable a best fit planar surface, dome, pyramid etc.

Thank you in advance

Brian.

@unknownuser said:

Here is an updated version of my cloud script:

• Imports and exports (new!) DEM points cloud, several CSV formats supported.
• All units (import/export) supported.
• Saves id's, altitudes, or any other field as attributes or insert them as texts (new!).
• Manage layers, triangulation option.
• Doc, sample files and tutorial included.

Also downloadable at my RLDsite: http://rhin.crai.archi.fr/RubyLibraryDepot/plugin_details.php?id=678

Enjoy,

EDIT: 23.06.10: (Cloud_v71) units bug fix, especially for users of SU 7.1
[attachment=3:bpyvk05a]<!-- ia3 -->Cloud_v71.zip<!-- ia3 -->[/attachment:bpyvk05a]
EDIT: 28.11.10: (Cloud_v8) support for CR/CRLF text files, cloud origin selectable.
[attachment=2:bpyvk05a]<!-- ia2 -->Cloud_v8.zip<!-- ia2 -->[/attachment:bpyvk05a]
EDIT 29.11.10 Bug fix.
[attachment=1:bpyvk05a]<!-- ia1 -->Cloud_v8a.zip<!-- ia1 -->[/attachment:bpyvk05a]
EDIT 01.12.10
[attachment=0:bpyvk05a]<!-- ia0 -->Cloud_v8b.zip<!-- ia0 -->[/attachment:bpyvk05a]

Gaieus,

Thank you for your reply and advise. A few mm either way shouldn't be a problem if this makes thing easier to model.

Brian

Hello, I'm Brian, new to the forum and also new to google sketchup.
I'm a chartered surveyor and business owner who specialises in building surveying, measured building surveys and topographical surveys.I'm experienced with other cad applications, Acad, Lss (Land survey software)and various photomodelling software, to name a few.

My initial area of interest with sketchup is how to use field surveyed data, imported into
sketchup as 3d polylines, to produce 3d building and land survey(topographical) models. My interest in using google
sketchup was initiated through discussions with several client's (architect's) who are users and would like their survey drawings delivered in 3d rather than traditional 2d cad drawings which require additional work in sketchup.

Most existing examples of using sketchup for building modelling appear to be based on square buildings with planar surfaces where plans can be extruded vertically etc. to produce a model. This is very rarely the case with existing buildings, so it will be interesting to see how techinques develop to deal with this .eg. Planarity of faces should not be assumed with measured building surveys, as they very rarely are. Surveys also have to acheive stringent accuracy tolerances tyically +/- 5 to 15mm of true values.

Whils't a relatively inexperienced user of sketchup, as a professionally qualified and experienced surveyor I would be happy to advise members in areas which fall into my expertise. I would also be very interested to hear from other members who have used google sketchup to produce accurate models of topographical and measured building surveys, together with users who have used 3d point clouds within ggole sketchup.

So, Hello to all and I look forward to a steep learning curve and discussing all things sketchup.

Regards

Brian