Yep it's a LiDAR based scanner, I don't rent it though my colleague owns it and I borrow it from him. I have access to the software for it, Leica's software is called cyclone, which is great, but It isn't all to mac compatible so I need to be on a computer with a license to use it. That is where sketchup comes in, I'm trying to see if I can use it effectively vs other software as it's free and works on my mac.

Seems if I decimate the point cloud to sub 10k points there are no problems, so I'm just rendering small parts at a time and them bringing the surfaces together.

Sorry it's taken so long to reply.

The point data is "normal", just XYX data on a pre-established datum. The data is nothing fancy, just toying with ways to post process the data outside of the proprietary software for the scanner as it dosen't automatically generate hard surface models.

Thanks, again I'm really new to this so I appreciate all the help.

I'll read your how to for sure.

I do have a terrain element so I will definitely use it for that.

No I haven't looked into that yet, but I am now. I am curious though as it's designed for terrain would it have issues modeling a structure?

Hello all,

Well I'm new to sketchup and having some issues. I'm working with a ~700,000 point point cloud and am trying to directly import it and model it in sketch up. Well needless to say the program doesn't like it, I'm thinking it's more of my processor than the program but it's painfully slow (using a Mac book pro and OS 10.5). I'm importing a DXF file from leica Geosystems Cyclone viewer off of a Leica ScanStation2. The structure is large (an amphitheater) and I'm trying to see if it is possible to model it solely in Sketchup without having to do and TIN work in Cyclone. What I'm trying to do now is decimate the point cloud so that it can be easily rendered into a model structure manually, but I feel as though I'm loosing the data I need to accurately model everything and I'm getting the feeling that I'm going about this the wrong way. I'm thinking it might be better to do TIN surfaces in another software and import that for finishing in skethup, but in reality I have no clue.

Has anyone done any work like this before? I would appreciate any advice.

thanks in advance