Point cloud in a webserver

Viewing point clouds is difficult, it often requires special software to view it. What if there was a different way to view them if you could just view them in a browser.

There is. www.potree.org is a free open source program that can be used to to stream point clouds from you own server. However setting it up is not done via a GUI interface.

  1. Download and install XAMPP and start a local server
  2. Right mouse click an run XAMPP as an admin
  3. Download Potree convertor from github
  4. Install on C:\PotreeConverter_1.6_windows_x64
  5. Open up a terminal window using by typeing cmd
  6. Go to the root directory C:\ by typing cd\
  7. Copy and paste the point cloud you want to stream to your C directory. The point cloud should be in .las format
  8. With the .las in the C:\ Change directory using “cd” and go the potree convertor directory
  9. Run the program by typing “PotreeConverter.exe C:/pointcloud.las -o C:/xampp/htdocs/potree --generate-page pageName”


    • Potreeconverter.exe” runs the potree converter exe file.
    • C:/pointcloud.las” is the location of the las file.
    • -o” is the output directory
    • "pageName" is the name of the file
  1. This means that it will output a file called “pageName” to a folder called potree in the following path. “C:/xampp/htdocs
  2. To run the file, enter the following into the browser
  3. "http://localhost/potree/pageName.html"

Have fun!

Great article from Sarah Lorek on why you need to laser scan your next project.


How Does It Work?


The technology has a wide array of jobsite applications, including:

Pre-construction as-builts Building Information Modeling (BIM) Virtual Design Construction (VDC) Quality Control during construction Comparing design intent to as-built conditions When objects or existing site conditions are scanned, millions of data points are recorded (invisible to the human eye) and the result is an accurate depiction of the scanned site or object. This accurate depiction is called a point cloud.


Why Would You Need It?





About the Author: Sarah Lorek


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