Josef Pelz
patreon
Point Cloud Render Tool (Windows Only)
🕑 Added 2025-02-21 21:13:38 +0000 UTCI'm excited to release PCR, a point cloud rendering tool.
DISCLAIMER: PCR works on Windows only! That's because it relies on imageAtomicOperations which are currently not supported on Mac.
There are two versions of it, one for TOPs and one for POPs.
The PCR_TOP can use either one or two TOP inputs. The first input is used for the points positions, the second input as color.
The PCR_POP takes one POP as an input. The P attribute is used for positions and you can select which attribute to use for color with the respective parameter.
The PCR is a geometryCOMP, you'll need a renderTOP and a CameraCOMP to make it work. The renderTOP needs to be referenced on the PCR parameters.
The points are rendered additively. There's no 'Sorted Draw with Blending' happening. The Alpha parameter let's you scale the points transparency.
The 'Scale Alpha by Distance' toggle is on by default and makes sure that the appearance/brightness of the point cloud doesn't change based on the distance to the camera.
PCRs can render extra/additional points per point in your point cloud. Extra points are scattered in a small sphere around the original point. By controlling the size of the sphere per point – based on the distance to the camera – we create a bokeh effect. You can set the number of extra points, the focus distance and the bokeh strength with the respective parameters.
With 'Scale Alpha to Focus' you can control whether a points alpha/brightness is scalled by it's distance to the focus plane.
If you combine PCRs with other geometry in a scene, you might want to turn on 'Composite Depth' and use the TOP output of the PCR instead of the result given by the renderTOP.
I'm looking forward to seeing your point clouds rendered with PCR! Thanks to Carlos Serrano for sharing the point cloud I used in the image above.
Comments
Josef Pelz
Thank you!
Jonathan Thompson
This is a very slick tool, the WOW factor is insane. Nice one!
Gilles
Well I get my pointcloud file imported I render it out but the points are white I can't seem to able to geet to pointcloud colored. Inserted a match to get the full color spectrum.
Josef Pelz
I’ll make a tutorial soon, explaining it all
Josef Pelz
Can you rephrase your question? I didn’t get it
Gilles
Thanks I love your work but I can't seem to get color of my PC compared to the conventional Method I use. How do you proceed?
Josef Pelz
No, I got to do that
Scott Mann
Hi Josef- is there a tutorial?
Josef Pelz
Do you want to create a pointcloud in space that is a flat plane with the image as color? In that case, you could have to create the positions of the points on the plane/grid
cc
Is it possible to convert an image directly into a point cloud? I tried using an image directly connected to the PCR it doesn't seem to work.
Chase Hoagland
Amazing! Excited to try this. Thank you
