Visualize Point Cloud Using Color and Camera Views

Lidar Viewer provides various colors and camera view options to analyze point cloud data. From the Data Browser pane, select the point cloud that you want to visualize.

For information on how to open Lidar Viewer app and import data, see Import, View, and Export Point Cloud.

Color Controls

You can control the color of the displayed point cloud by using these options in the Color section of the app toolstrip:

 Colormap

Choose the color profile for the point cloud data from one of these options.

• Solid Color

• Red to Blue

• Parula

• Jet

• Spring

• Hot

• Color

Note

The app displays the Color option only when the input point cloud has color information.

 Colormap Value

Choose how the color profile applies to the point cloud.

• Z Height — The color changes as the distance between points increases.

• Radial Distance — The color changes as the distance between points and the ego vehicle increases.

• Intensity — The color changes as the intensity value of points increases.

• Classification — The color changes based on the classification value of the point. For more information, see Classification.

  

• LaserReturn — The color changes as the number of laser returns increases. The return number is the number of times a laser pulse reflects back to the sensor.

• ScanAngle — The color changes as the sensor scan angle increases. The scan angle is a value in degrees between –90 and 90. At 0 degrees, the laser pulse is directly below the aerial lidar sensor. At –90 degrees, the laser pulse is to the left side of the sensor, relative to the direction of flight. At 90 degrees, the laser pulse is to the right side of the sensor, relative to the direction of flight.

  

• GPSTimeStamp – The color changes as the timestamp of a point increases.

Note

The app enables all the above options for Colormap Value with LAS/ LAZ data only. The default options for any other data format include Z Height, Radial Distance, and Intensity.

 Color Variation

Choose the color variation for the point cloud data as Linear or Custom.

• When you select Linear, the color variation is linear along the z-axis of the point cloud.

• When you select Custom, the app opens Custom Color Variation dialog box where you can select linear, logarithmic, exponential, or sigmoid variation. You can also modify the color variation by using the color bar.

  

 Background Color

Select the background color for the point cloud display.

 Restore Color

To restore the default color profile of the point cloud, click Restore Color.

Camera View Options

The app provides various predefined camera angles for viewing the point cloud data. You can also save and organize views.

Note

A Windows^® OS machine must have WebGL™ 2 support for graphics rendering.

 Planar Views

To visualize point cloud data in a 2-D plane, click Planar Views and select a 2-D plane from these options:

• XY View — View the xy-axes of a point cloud. This is the top view of the scene, and line of sight is along the z-axis.

• YX View — View the yx-axes of a point cloud. This view is the mirror image of the XY View with respect to the y-axis.

• YZ View — View the yz-axes of a point cloud. This is the front view of the scene, and line of sight is along the x-axis.

• ZY View — View the yz-axes of a point cloud. This view is the mirror image of the YZ View with respect to the z-axis.

• XZ View — View the xz-axes of a point cloud. This is a side view of the scene, and line of sight is along the y-axis.

• ZX View — View the zx-axes of a point cloud. This view is the mirror image of the XZ View with respect to the z-axis.

 Bird's Eye View

View from a high angle above a point cloud.

 Chase View

View the point cloud from a fixed distance behind the ego vehicle (actor). You can specify the ego direction by using the drop down.

 Ego View

View a point cloud from the perspective of the ego vehicle. You can specify the ego direction by using the drop down.

 Orthographic

Orthographic projection of the point cloud

 Perspective

Perspective projection of the point cloud

 Navigation

Select Orbital or First person navigation controls. These controls describe the behavior of the observer or first person, represented as the camera, with respect to the object to visualize or orbital, represented as the target.

• Orbital — Camera target is fixed. Only the camera position can change.

• First person — Both the camera position and the target position can change.

  Note

  The app enables first-person navigation for the perspective camera projection only.

This table lists the mouse interactions for the Orbital and First person camera controls:

Interaction	Orbital	First person
Rotate	Rotate the object around the observer.	Observer rotates (looks around the scene).
Pan	Pan the object with respect to the observer.	Observer moves through the scene in the left, right, up, or down direction.
Zoom	Zoom object toward or away from observer (makes the object appear larger or smaller).	Observer moves in the forward or backward direction.

This table shows the orbital keyboard shortcuts:

Behavior	Keyboard shortcut
Rotate by Z-axis	Left and right arrows
Rotate by X-axis	Up and down arrows
Rotate by Y-axis	Q and E

This table shows the first-person keyboard shortcuts:

Behavior	Keyboard Shortcut
Move forward	W — Forward S — Backward
Move left or right	A — Left D — Right
Move up or down	R — Up F — Down
Look around the scene (pitch/yaw rotation of camera)	Up arrow — Pitch up Down arrow — Pitch down Left arrow — Yaw left Right arrow — Yaw right
Roll the scene (roll rotation of camera)	Q — Clockwise roll E — Counter-clockwise roll

 Save Camera Views

To save a view, click Save View > Save Camera View, specify a name for the view, and click OK. You can return to the saved view at any time by clicking Save View and selecting the saved view from the Saved camera view names list. To delete or rename saved views, click Save View > Organize Camera Views.

 Restore View

Click Restore View to restore the original view of the point cloud.

Tip

You can adjust the point cloud view by using the x-, y-, z-axes at the bottom left corner of the visualization pane.

Point Controls

The app provides options to adjust the size of points, hide ground, and view point cloud clusters.

 Point Size

Adjust the display size of the points by specifying the Point Size.

For the first-person navigation using perspective projection, you can enlarge the points for better visualization. When you select Enlarge Points, the app adjusts the size of the points based on the camera position. If you position the camera closer to the points, the points appear larger than when the camera is far away.

 Hide Ground

Select Hide Ground to remove ground points from the point cloud. This enables the Ground Settings option. Click Ground Settings to open a dialog box in which you can select from these ground removal algorithms and specify their parameters.

• Select Range-based floodfill to remove ground points using the segmentGroundFromLidarData function.

• Select Fit ground plane to fit and filter the ground plane using the pcfitplane function.

• Select Segment ground SMRF to filter the ground points using the segmentGroundSMRF function. The app enables this option for only organized point clouds.

To visualize the segmented ground and nonground planes on the point cloud, select View Ground Data.

 View Clusters

Select View Cluster to view point cloud clusters. This enables the Cluster Settings option. Click Cluster Settings to open a dialog box in which you can select from these cluster-based coloring algorithms.

• Select Range-based clustering to cluster point cloud data using the segmentLidarData function.

• Select Distance-based clustering to cluster point cloud data using the pcsegdist function.

• Select k-means clustering to perform k-means clustering on the points.

You can specify the algorithm parameters in the dialog box, and visualize the output point cloud clusters.

Point Cloud Rotation

The app enables you to rotate point cloud for orbital navigation. To rotate the point cloud from any selected point, click Rotation From Point. If you want to rotate the point cloud from the axes center as the center of rotation, click Rotation About Axes-Center.