[PLUGIN] Point Cloud Plugin

[phoboz]

Hello Community!

Just wanted to share my creation. Hope you enjoy it
This plugin has been developed to help with importing, processing and rendering of point clouds.

Current Version: 0.4.2b / 0.5ea

Tested Engine Versions: 4.18, 4.19, 4.20(ea), 4.21(ea)
Tested Platform: Windows, HTC Vive

Multiplayer: Should work, although not thoroughly tested
Linux was reported working

For current and planned feature lists visit the Roadmap

DOWNLOAD


EARLY ACCESS


DOCUMENTATION

HOW TO INSTALL:
1. Quit the editor
2. Create folder called Plugins inside your project folder (next to folders like Content, Saved, etc.)
3. Unpack the PointCloudPlugin inside your Plugins folder
4. Open the project

HOW TO USE:
1. Drag and drop TXT or XYZ to content browser (importer should work with any column-based text file)
2. Select columns to import
3. Drag and drop the imported asset onto the scene

IMPORTANT:
- This is still a beta version, be prepared that some things may go wrong.
- In order to optimize VRAM footprint, the plugin introduces a new Vertex Factory (compiling with half precision support introduces an extra one), therefore during initial Engine start-up the shadres will have to be compiled, this might take a while.
- Rendering clouds as sprites uses ~4.5x more VRAM than points, but due to their adjustable size, less overall density is required

KNOWN ISSUES:
- May not fully support using Sequencer in 4.18

Point Clouds used for demonstration courtesy of:
- Dr Neil Entwistle, University of Salford
- Transport for London
- duke22

[duke22]

This will make someone in my office very happy!

[HeadClot]

Hey,
This looks really cool. Not sure it this is in scope for the plugin or if this would warrant an another plugin but have you thought about OpenVDB support?

Also what kind of System are you running it on? It looks like a beast VRam wise.

[phoboz]

Updated the post with my specs.
The point was to make it run on something with reasonable VRAM capacity, hence plenty of optimization went that way.

Haven't looked into OpenVDB, I might at some point.

The download should be up in few days

[ixicalibur]

this is awesome! cant wait to try it, iv been doing lots of photogrammetry projects over the past 8 months, quite eager to see what some of my clouds look like rendered in ue4

[phoboz]

Version 0.1 beta is live. Give it a go and let me know what you think

[antinook]

Hi phoboz, This asks for Binaries. I'm a newbie, what should i do? thanks

[duke22]

Any chance of supporting e57? I can't get XYZ out of Recap

[phoboz]

Sorry for lack of replies, I didn't get notifications for some reason.

antinook The plugin is provided with just source code and requires source-based project. With that said, I might take the time to compile it for a number of version for peoples convenience. It will have to wait until version 0.2 release, tho.

duke22 I'll try to add e57 support for v0.2.

[phoboz]

I have just released version 0.2 with several improvements and bug fixes. It now contains all files required to build content-only projects too.
Unfortunately I couldn't fit the E57 support in it just yet.

[duke22]

Nice job! The import is much more stable now, it read most of my 3.25gb file before it crashed due to being out of memory.

[duke22]

Also, where do I change the point size?

[LegendreVR]

Dang this looks like an awesome plugin on the paper but... I can't even get it to run, it crashes the editor as soon as I start a new BP or Unreal Studio project with the plugin enabled.

Only way I could make it worked was by creating a C++ project, is it a requirement ?

[phoboz]

duke22 I had it successfully load files 25gb+, it shouldn't crash. What file are you loading and how much RAM do you have? Don't suppose this file is available somewhere for download to test?

LegendreVR Haven't tested this with Unreal Studio, but can't see why it wouldn't work. Version 0.1 was code only, 0.2 has all necessary binaries included so should start and deploy with content-only projects too. Are you using 4.18 or 4.19? Were there any errors? Could you send me your log file?

[phoboz]

duke22 As for point size - you can't change them, points are just pixels. If you want something that can be scaled, you need to switch to sprites, then you have Min/Max and ScaleDistance parameters to adjust their size.