Point Cloud

A point cloud is a collection of points in 3D space that is often generated by 3D scanners and has applications in 3D modeling. Each point within the cloud has an X, Y, and Z value. Together, these are known as a vertex and a complex 3D point cloud will often contain hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of vertices. Point clouds can be saved to dedicated file formats such as XYZ and PLY though it is also possible to save a point cloud to the OBJ format too, though to open and edit a point cloud OBJ file, you will need a compatible 3D model editor.

Here we have some examples of various point clouds, the first of which was created with a 3D scanner. The remaining two examples are full 3D renders stripped of their surface triangles to create a point cloud:

A point cloud of a human 3D scan

A teapot point cloud

A small gear created as a point cloud

Colors within a Point Cloud

As already mentioned, each point contains positional information. Some point cloud formats, such as PTX also supports storing a color, which is composed of a sequence of values representing the red, green, and blue components, along with the position, allowing full-color 3D models to be generated from the point cloud.

Creating a Solid 3D Model

As a point cloud only contains the positional information of each point and no surface information describing how the points are connected, there are dedicated algorithms that can be used to create a solid 3D model from these unconnected points. Delaunay triangulation is one of these and is supported by our own XYZ to STL converter.

A teapot rendered as a point cloud

The teapot rendered as a wireframe

The teapot rendered with its mesh faces