Converting Point Clouds into Virtual Reality Using Vizard

January 15, 2016

Sandra Bergmeir

Vizard, WorldViz’s VR development platform, can take just about any industry standard 3D model and render it in real-time, sterescopic, fully immersive virtual reality. It does this with such precision and speed that it can be used for highly sensitive tasks like analyzing as-built assets, conducting risk evaluation, or planning building or system modifications.

Professionals in oil and gas, defense, engineering, and construction already use 3D scanning technology to facilitate these sorts of projects, and now some are taking those scans, or point cloud files, and putting them into immersive viewing technology like our VizMove VR systems.

Is it incredibly easy to incorporate VR into existing point-cloud workflows. Companies like DotProductoffer handheld scanning devices, like DotProduct’s DPI-7, which requires only minutes to fully scan an environment. It exports these 3D scans in .dp format and can be stored in the cloud immediately for remote access. These .dp files, as well as other point cloud file types like .3dc, .asc, and .ply, can be imported into Vizard and viewed in whatever VR hardware set up you have available to you at the exact scale that the environments exist in physical reality. If the particular task at hand calls for your point clouds to be meshed into surfaced 3D models, you can convert those files using one of many third party programs, like CloudCompare, which is free to use. These programs can export the resulting meshed 3D models in any of several file types that Vizard can also render in real time.

WorldViz’s partnership with DotProduct has advanced Vizard’s use as a versatile and professional virtual reality engine. To learn how Vizard is used in other industries, visit the Architecture, Engineering, and Construction or Defense pages.

Stay Updated
Subscribe to our monthly Newsletter
CONTACT US 
Phone +1 (888) 841-3416
Fax +1 (866) 226-7529
813 Reddick St
Santa Barbara, CA 93103