pointCloud

Object for storing 3-D point cloud

Description

The pointCloud object creates point cloud data from a set of points in 3-D coordinate system. The points generally represent the x,y, and z geometric coordinates for samples on a surface or of an environment. Each point can also be represented with additional information, such as the RGB color. The point cloud data is stored as an object with the properties listed in Properties. Use Object Functions to retrieve, select, and remove desired points from the point cloud data.

Creation

Syntax

ptCloud = pointCloud(xyzPoints)

ptCloud = pointCloud(___,Name=Value)

Description

ptCloud = pointCloud(xyzPoints) returns a point cloud object with coordinates specified by xyzPoints.

ptCloud = pointCloud(___,Name=Value) sets options using one or more name-value arguments in addition to the previous syntax. For example, Color=[1 0 0] sets the color of the point cloud to red.

Input Arguments

xyzPoints — 3-D coordinate points

M-by-3 list of points | M-by-N-by-3 array for organized point cloud

3-D coordinate points, specified as an M-by-3 list of points or an M-by-N-by-3 array for an organized point cloud. The 3-D coordinate points specify the x, y, and z positions of a point in the 3-D coordinate space. The first two dimensions of an organized point cloud correspond to the scanning order from sensors such as RGBD or lidar. This argument sets the Location property.

Data Types: single | double

Name-Value Arguments

Specify optional pairs of arguments as Name1=Value1,...,NameN=ValueN, where Name is the argument name and Value is the corresponding value. Name-value arguments must appear after other arguments, but the order of the pairs does not matter.

Before R2021a, use commas to separate each name and value, and enclose Name in quotes.

Example: Color=[1 0 0] sets the color of the point cloud to red.

Color — Point cloud color

[ ] (default) | color string | 1-by-3 vector | M-by-3 matrix | M-by-N-by-3 matrix

Point cloud color, specified as an RGB value as one of, a color string, a 1-by-3 vector, or an M-by-3 or M-by-N-by-3 matrix. M-by- N specifies the dimensions of the point cloud. Each entry specifies the RGB color of a point in the point cloud data. Therefore, you can specify the same color for all points or a different color for each point.

• For single or double datatype, the Color RGB value must be specified in the range [0, 1].

• For uint8 datatype, the Color RGB value must be specified in the range [0, 255].

• For uint16 datatype, the Color RGB value must be specified in the range [0, 65535].

• The function stores the Color value as either an M-by-3 or M-by-N-by-3. If you specify the color as a string or a 1-by-3 vector, the function converts it to one of these dimensions.

Color	Format	Example
Specify one color for all points	string scalar or character vector	"r" "red"
	1-by-3 vector	[255 0 0]
Specify a color for each point	cell array of character vectors	["red","yellow","blue"]
	M-by-3 matrix, as a list of RGB values	255 0 0 255 0 0 0 255 255
	M-by-N-by-3 matrix for an organized point cloud containing RGB values for each point, where M-by-N is the dimension of the point cloud.

Data Types: uint8 | uint16

Normal — Surface normals

[ ] (default) | M-by-3 array | M-by-N-by-3 array

Surface normals, specified as a M-by-3 or M-by-N-by-3 array. Use this property to specify the normal vector with respect to each point in the point cloud. Each entry in the surface normals specifies the x, y, and z component of a normal vector.

Coordinates	Surface Normals
M-by-3 array	M-by-3 array, where each row contains a corresponding normal vector.
M-by-N-by-3 array	M-by-N-by-3 array containing a 1-by-1-by-3 normal vector for each point.

Data Types: single | double

Intensity — Grayscale intensities

[ ] (default) | M-by-1 vector | M-by-N matrix

Grayscale intensities at each point, specified as a M-by-1 vector or M-by-N matrix. The function maps each intensity value to a color value in the current colormap.

Coordinates	Intensity
M-by-3 array	M-by-1 vector, where each row contains a corresponding intensity value.
M-by-N-by-3 array	M-by-N matrix containing intensity value for each point.

Data Types: single | double | uint8 | uint16

Output Arguments

ptCloud — Point cloud

pointCloud object

Point cloud, returned as a pointCloud object with the properties listed in Properties.

Properties

Location — Position of the points in 3-D coordinate space

M-by-3 array | M-by-N-by-3 array

This property is read-only.

Position of the points in 3-D coordinate space, specified as an M-by-3 or M-by-N-by-3 array. Each entry specifies the x, y, and z coordinates of a point in the 3-D coordinate space. The xyzPoints input argument sets this property. To reduce memory use, you can store point locations as a single data type.

• For unorganized point clouds, Location must be specified as an M-by-3 array, where M is the total number of points, and the array provides the x,y,z coordinates for each point.

• For organized point clouds, Location must be specified as an M-by-N-by-3 array, where M*N is the total number of points, and the array provides the x,y,z coordinates for each point. Points obtained from a projective camera, such as Kinect^® or a lidar sensor, are stored as an organized point cloud. An organized point cloud is laid out as a 2-D array of points that resemble an image-like structure.

Data Types: single | double

Count — Number of points

positive integer

This property is read-only.

Number of points in the point cloud, stored as a positive integer.

XLimits — Range of x coordinates

1-by-2 vector

This property is read-only.

Range of coordinates along x-axis, stored as a 1-by-2 vector.

YLimits — Range of y coordinates

1-by-2 vector

This property is read-only.

Range of coordinates along y-axis, stored as a 1-by-2 vector.

ZLimits — Range of z coordinates

1-by-2 vector

This property is read-only.

Range of coordinates along z-axis, stored as a 1-by-2 vector.

Object Functions

findNearestNeighbors	Find nearest neighbors of a point in point cloud
findNeighborsInRadius	Find neighbors within a radius of a point in the point cloud
findPointsInROI	Find points within a region of interest in the point cloud
findPointsInCylinder	Find points within a cylindrical region in a point cloud
removeInvalidPoints	Remove invalid points from point cloud
select	Select points in point cloud
copy	Copy array of point cloud objects

Examples

Create a Point Cloud Object and Modify Properties

Read the 3-D coordinate points into the workspace.

load("xyzPoints");

Create a point cloud object from the input point coordinates.

ptCloud = pointCloud(xyzPoints);

Inspect the properties of the point cloud object.

ptCloud

ptCloud = 
  pointCloud with properties:

     Location: [5184x3 single]
        Count: 5184
      XLimits: [-3 3.4338]
      YLimits: [-2 2]
      ZLimits: [0.0016 3.1437]
        Color: []
       Normal: []
    Intensity: []

Display the point cloud by using pcshow.

pcshow(ptCloud)

Modify Color of Point Cloud Data

Create an RGB color array of size same as the size of the point cloud data. Set the point colors to Red.

cmatrix = ones(size(ptCloud.Location)).*[1 0 0];

Create the point cloud object with the color property set to the RGB color array.

ptCloud = pointCloud(xyzPoints,Color=cmatrix);
pcshow(ptCloud)

Add Surface Normals to Point Cloud Data

Compute surface normals corresponding to the point cloud data using pcnormals.

normals = pcnormals(ptCloud);

Create point cloud object from input point coordinates. Add the computed surface normals to point cloud object.

ptCloud = pointCloud(xyzPoints,Normal=normals);

Display the point cloud and plot the surface normals.

pcshow(ptCloud)
x = ptCloud.Location(:,1);
y = ptCloud.Location(:,2);
z = ptCloud.Location(:,3);
u = normals(:,1);
v = normals(:,2);
w = normals(:,3);
hold on
quiver3(x,y,z,u,v,w);
hold off

Tips

The pointCloud object is a handle object. If you want to create a separate copy of a point cloud, you can use the MATLAB^® copy method.

ptCloudB = copy(ptCloudA)

If you want to preserve a single copy of a point cloud, which can be modified by point cloud functions, use the same point cloud variable name for the input and output.

ptCloud = pcFunction(ptCloud)

Extended Capabilities

C/C++ Code Generation
Generate C and C++ code using MATLAB® Coder™.

GPU Code Generation

Generate CUDA® code for NVIDIA® GPUs using GPU Coder™.

Usage notes and limitations:

• GPU code generation for variable input sizes is not optimized. Consider using constant size inputs for an optimized code generation.

• GPU code generation supports the Color, Normal, and Intensity name-value pairs.

• GPU code generation supports the findNearestNeighbors, findNeighborsInRadius, findPointsInROI, removeInvalidPoints, and select methods.

• For very large inputs, the memory requirements of the algorithm may exceed the GPU device limits. In such cases, consider reducing the input size to proceed with code generation.

Version History

Introduced in R2015a

R2022b: Color support uint16 datatype

uint16 datatype support for the Color property