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Opening point cloud in SolidWorks

Opening point cloud in SolidWorks

RE: Opening point cloud in SolidWorks

The middle coordinate in the csv file are all 526. Y is up in SW and Z is up in most survey equipment. It seems you may need to re-order your coordinates for it to appear as you would like in SW.

RE: Opening point cloud in SolidWorks

Seems like even if you re-order you are still going have one vector that is always the same, instead of a flattend plan view you will have a elevation view with no depth into the view.

I think your .csv file has some data issues.

RE: Opening point cloud in SolidWorks

(OP)
If you keep scrolling down in the text file you will see that the y values are not all 526. The csv file doesn't look like it is messed up either.

RE: Opening point cloud in SolidWorks

Yes I see that now. I had only looked at the first couple of pages of points. So no data issues, agree. It does look like the coords in what would normally be the Y position is you elevation change and the first and last coords within a line are your plan view coordinates.

RE: Opening point cloud in SolidWorks

I looked at your data set in more detail. Are you sure its is all on one plane? Because it looks like you are looking at an area that cover a piece of land that is 243163 units (whatever they may be, feet inches, meters, etc) by 244956 units and is only 58 (edit: was 584) units deep.

RE: Opening point cloud in SolidWorks

However your data set does appear to be missing the coords for the 530, 568, 570, 578, & 580 elevations

RE: Opening point cloud in SolidWorks

(OP)
I just realized what I need to do. I need to add the lowest elevation value to all the rest of the elevation values.

RE: Opening point cloud in SolidWorks

So your elevations cannot be relative to sea level? I guess you normalize the elevations so the top of the quarry is at elevation zero. ??? I've never done this type of work so I am learning also.

RE: Opening point cloud in SolidWorks

(OP)
I had to import the points from a 2d sketch in another program. Unfortunately the contours lines at the different elevations where not on separate layers. I moved the contours lines to appropriate elevation layers. SolidWorks imported the sketch, putting the different contour lines into different sketches. I then used a macro to export the points in each sketch to Excel. I then just added in the elevation data to a third column.

ps. I still ran into problems. I've attached the text file with the corrected elevation values.

RE: Opening point cloud in SolidWorks

I looked at that too quickly. I tried it a bit now, and I think your elevations are exceeding the solidworks limits. When I set the import units to meters (scan to 3D option), I keep getting an error that the model exceeds the -500m, 500m limits. Using mm as the units, it imported like in the picture. In a side view I see different elevations, but I am suspicious they are not correct. I have never tried working with our point clouds in SW before. I was told clouds exceeding 1million points are not easily manipulated in SW. 1million points is a small point cloud. You must have filtered this quite a lot. I am not sure this is a good problem for SW.

RE: Opening point cloud in SolidWorks

(OP)
I'm not sure what else to do. I need a model of this quarry for work.

RE: Opening point cloud in SolidWorks

I checked the data in the picture I posted earlier. It appears to be importing correctly with the units set to mm, so maybe you can use a scale factor. I would include the SW file, but the point cloud disappears when I re-open the file. A bit of googling shows that is not uncommon. This would be very easy in Civil3D.

Hopefully one of the SW gurus has a better idea.

RE: Opening point cloud in SolidWorks

(OP)
The elevation still does not look correct even if the units are set as mm. Here is a Google image of the quarry.

https://www.google.com/maps/@33.7800569,-84.435145...

A little background information on how I got the points.

1. I was supplied a contour plot of the quarry. The drawing is a 2d sketch.
2. When I click on a contour line, I can see what elevation it has in the properties box.
3. I move each contour line to a new layer. Each layer represents a particular elevation.
4. I then explode all the contour lines (because they are polylines at this point).
5. I then open this dwg file in SolidWorks and set the option to have each layer in the dwg as a new sketch (hence the reason why I separated each different elevation contour to its own layer).
6. In each sketch I fit a spline to the points and simplified the spline geometry.
7. I then exported all the points in each sketch to Excel using a macro I found online.
8. Here is where I think I am messing up. Since exporting the points in a sketch only gives the planar coordinates, I have to manually insert the elevation data in Excel.

Example: I click on the sketch containing the contour lines for elevation 540ft. I export the points to Excel. I add a column of 540. I repeat this process for the other sketches.

The drawing was made in progeCAD and you can get a free trial download on Google.

I'm starting to think that maybe my elevation values I added are incorrect.

I have included the dwg file if anyone is willing to open it up in progeCAD to see the contours.

RE: Opening point cloud in SolidWorks

I still think it is a unit issue. Unfortunately I cannot import the cloud. But based on the cloud points that Brad posted, the Google map view and your 3D sketch it looks like the basic features are there.



I can see the ridge (red), the water is kind of there (blue).

Are you sure of the contour intervals? As I stated earlier, it appears that you are working with a land area that is some 243,000 units by 245,000 units, yet your depth is only 58 units. That is a depth that is approx. 0.02% of the length and width of your plot. With this ratio the cloud is going to look pretty flat.

Are you sure your contour intervals are 2 units?

Based on the Google map the quarry looks to be about 2000ft across in the east/west direction. This seems to imply that your plan view units might be the issue. 2000ft times 12 inches per foot = 24000inches. This go so happens to be about 1/10 of you plan view coordinate size. Is it possible (doesn't seem like) but could your plan view coords be off by an order of magnitude?

RE: Opening point cloud in SolidWorks

(OP)
I too was thinking about the contour intervals being off late last night. This would make sense since I put the intervals in manually. I am going to attempt to scale my interval offset and retry.

RE: Opening point cloud in SolidWorks

Another thing that makes me question units is that again based on the Google map (and again admitteldy this is just a guess) but it apperas as though the depth is about 1/10 of the width. There is our order of magnatude again. ???

RE: Opening point cloud in SolidWorks

This has taken you some time. I take it the surveyor would not provide the raw coordinate file? We have created TIN's or meshes from contours too. I see how you are doing this, and I would make sure you have not made any simple errors in Excel. If you have to do this in the future again, I suggest you convince your employer to provide you the correct software to do so, or sub this to someone who does.

I imported the same file into recap and then CAD. It looked about the same. I can see the outlines of the contours in the points, and the outline of the quarry walls are apparent, but I have no idea if the elevations make sense.

We have the scanto3D add-in, so importing points into SW is simply opening the text file.

RE: Opening point cloud in SolidWorks

(OP)
That is interesting. What I have done is exported all the points from all the sketches and added in the appropriate elevation values for the contours. Instead of saving the Excel file as a txt file and opening it in SW, I am using a macro to import the x y z coordinates from the txt file into a 3D sketch. What I am noticing in the parameters dialog (while the points are importing) the y parameter value is not 526, 528, 530...etc. The values are in the 1000's. I'm thinking that SW is automatically scaling the y parameter value? This is still running but I will let you know if I get something looking good. The whole purpose of using SW is to possibly export the "new" 3D points and use them in another program to generate my surface. Then import this surface into SW to use in my model. I'm not sure if SW has an automatic point cloud to surface tool.

Edit: I asked for the survey data and they do not have the 3D point data. Hence my frustration of manually adding in the elevation data.

RE: Opening point cloud in SolidWorks

I keep coming back to the idea that on the Google map it appears that this quarry is in the range of 2000ft across. Maybe it is really 2400ft across in which case maybe your 243,000 by 245,000 unit area has the decimal off by two orders of magnitude (shift decimal two places to the left) and your plot area is now a 2430units (feet ???) by 2450units.

I still feel like there is a countour elevations unit issue relative to your plot plan coords as it seem like your cloud is just very flat, little elevation change. I know I am repeting myself but are you sure those are 2unit interval and not 5, 10, 20 ...

20 & 2, there is that order of magnitude again

And you did say that you had to add the elevation data. Who gave you the plot data, maybe you can contact them and ask what the countour increments are relative to the plot coords.

RE: Opening point cloud in SolidWorks

(OP)
On the sketch the contour intervals are 2 ft. The guy that gave me the drawing said that the drawing had units of feet. I'm thinking because this is survey data, the units were not transferred properly. I agree with the contour elevation unit issue. I have been watching the y parameter value as the points are importing and I have figured something out. I recorded two successive y parameter values. I took the difference and then divide that value by 2ft. I get a value of 3.280839895. I call this my scaling factor. I then took a y parametric value, say 1856.95538058 and divided this by the scaling factor. I get 566. Which is correct for that particular y parametric value. I am now at contour 576 ft. This is almost finished. Crossing my fingers I don't get a squashed point cloud.

You are correct. I had to manually insert the elevation data in Excel. The person who gave me this file does not know the correlation between contour increments and plot coordinates.


Edit: Importing just finished. No success. Point cloud is still squashed. I'm not sure of any accurate way to obtain the scaling factor I need.

RE: Opening point cloud in SolidWorks

(OP)
Ok, I found a scaling factor. I have my SW file with the dwg opened up. The contour lines are separated into different sketches on different planes according to their elevation (values from the dwg drawing). The planes are separated at 2 ft intervals. I created a 3D sketch and converted a point from the maximum elevation which was at 582 I believe. I then measured the distance from this point to my bottom contour plane (526 contour). The value was something like 1xx.xxx. I then multiplied that value to just the elevation values in the Excel file and am now importing them into SW. Hopefully this works.

RE: Opening point cloud in SolidWorks

Can you take a measurment, say a box that will surround your point cloud as you have it now in the plan view?

FYI: this response was related to your previous last response, you posted while I was typing

RE: Opening point cloud in SolidWorks

(OP)
I could do that. I will have to try after this second attempt of importing is finished. I will still try the bounding box idea if this doesn't work. I believe this will work because my scaled of magnitude for all three point parameters are now the same.

RE: Opening point cloud in SolidWorks

Couple of puzzling issues and a new line of thinking

First a correction:
I initially stated that it looked like you had a depth of 584units, this should have been 58 units (584-526). This also make you elevation only 0.02% (two one-hundredths of a percent) of your plot area. Yes this is going to produce a very flat cloud.

Also your new data file, it seem you striped a lot of data from the file which is something I was going to talk about for testing. But I notice your elevations now have a 584unit range, but it jumps from 526 to 1110. ???

OK, new line of thinking:
*You stated that your data guys says the units are feet, correct ???
*How do we know the magnitude of the units between contour intervals ???
*Based on some views from the side of the quarry, a depth of 500 something feet looks a lot more accurate than 50 something feet ???, my thinking is 500ish based on quarries I have seen

Based on you initial data set it appears that you have 25 + maybe 5 missing elevation sets of data. If the contour are only 2ft that makes a roughly 60ft deep quarry. This quarry LOOKS to be much deeper than that, so maybe they are 20ft contours which makes a more reasonable 600ft deep quarry. ???

And again going back to the Google map view the quarry appears to be in the range of 2000± feet across. Posted this already, but again is it possible that the plan data is in hundreds of a foot, such that your plot area of 243,000 by 245,000 is hundredths of a foot ==> this really being 2430ft, and 2450ft (fairly close to my 2000ft rough estimate of the width of this quarry).

???

RE: Opening point cloud in SolidWorks

Something else just clicked, upon rereading this thread. Your scaling factor. You do realize that your 3.280839895 scaling factor is precisely how many feet are in a meter. I think we may be mixing meters and feet somehow/where.

RE: Opening point cloud in SolidWorks

(OP)
As far as the jump goes in the data, that was wrong on my part. My first attempt at solving this problem was thinking that I needed to reverse normalize the elevations. I will double check in progeCAD the contour intervals, they have text on them. I will have to check in the dwg if they included a scale but I don't remember seeing one.

RE: Opening point cloud in SolidWorks

Oh yes, I forgot to get back to your data. One thing that you might want to do is to strip everything but your top elevation data and you lowest elevation data. That way the import will be much quicker and you may be able then look at an elevation view and see that you have 2 distinct layers of data rather than 30 layer squeezed in the same vertical distance.

RE: Opening point cloud in SolidWorks

And by the way I just notice "Aerospace" what are you doing dealing with a hole in the ground, don't you guys generally work with things that are above the grade? bigsmile

RE: Opening point cloud in SolidWorks

(OP)
I will try your idea. My importing finished and the point cloud is not squashed but I need to make sure it is correct. I attached a pdf of the drawing with the contour elevation labels.

Yea. I have a masters degree in aerospace engineering and have been looking to get into my career since graduating 2013. I initially got this job as a guy out on the manufacturing floor but then the higher ups found out I have degrees and SW experience and I got moved into the office. Still looking for an aerospace job though.

RE: Opening point cloud in SolidWorks

(OP)
My bounding dimensions are delta x = 615.841512, delta y = 509.50446. I don't see anywhere on the drawing a scale.

RE: Opening point cloud in SolidWorks

I think I have your answer.

Based on the contour plot you sent. The elevation along the rim at what loks to be some sort of pumphouse looks to be at 850 units. The deepest part of the lake appears to be in the southeast corner is is at 526 units. That is a difference of 324 units. I think you assumed each of your sets/layers of data represented each 2unit (brown) contour line. I contend that each of your datasets/layers is for each 10unit (green) contour line.
Why?
Based on your inital data and the elevation coords you added, there are 30 layers of data. Approximatley 300units of elevation devided by 30 sets/layers says these are 10unit intervals. Plus if you go on the assumption that the bottom of the lake is at 526units and add 30 2units layers you only get up to elevation 586units as your first set of data suggested. However we know that the rim of the quarry is somewhere in the neighborhood of 850units.
Therefore:
The contour intervals of your data must be 10units. Most likely feet, because if it were meters this quarry would be approximately 1000feet deep. Can't see that, 300feet sounds more reasonable.

OK, now your plan view coords. Based on the fact that you just told me your plot is 615units x 510units and the idea the per the Google map the lake appears to approx 2000ft wide, 615 meters times 3.28fet per meter reults in 2017feet.

So based on this I think your contour elevation are at 10foot intervals and that your plan view data is in meters.
So I think you need to convert you plan view data to feet (devide by 3.28) and change your contour intervals to 10feet (change 526 to 530, then 528 to 540, 530 to 550, after 30 layers you will be at the rim of the quarry (850ish).

RE: Opening point cloud in SolidWorks

(OP)
In the drawing if I click on any contour line I can view the elevation. I clicked on a brown contour line next to a green one. I get 548 for the brown and 550 for the green. That is why I assumed each contour line is 2 ft apart.

RE: Opening point cloud in SolidWorks

I believe you, just from looking at the PDF there is no doubt that (2 feet between brown lines) is 100% correct. My point is that with 30 layers of data based on your asuumed 526, 528, 530, ... would only get you part way out of the quarry. That would only get you up to elevation 584 as your origanal data suggestes, but we know the rim of the quarry is around the 850 mark, so your elevation only take you 1/5 of the way up the quarry walls. That is why I contend that each of your sets/layers of plan data are 10 feet apart or every 5th (green) contour.

RE: Opening point cloud in SolidWorks

(OP)
I should note that I'm not going all the way up to the quarry rim. I only need the contours from 526 to 584. Sorry for the confusion.

Edit: I just figured out my problem. After I move the contours to their own elevation layers I explode each contour because SW had problems opening the sketch. I got the error below.

Entities within a block can't be merged with entities in other block. The Explode Blocks option is recommended for merging.

So to get around this error I exploded each contour line. SW had no problem opening the drawing then. Here's the kicker, if I explode a contour line that starts at an x value of 30.155809, the x value changes to 352.735189!!!

RE: Opening point cloud in SolidWorks

(OP)
Disregard the comment about the exploding. I'm going to try something else. I think I may have fixed this.

RE: Opening point cloud in SolidWorks

Yes that certainly clears that up. The water looks to be at about 560. And NOW I understand, are only going to the area marked with the red lines at your 584 mark.



Which explains why I was not seeing this little flat area between these two shear walls

Your data just goes up to that first wall.

In this case I agree with your data sets being on 2unit (thinking feet per above) intervals. This still leaves the plan coords in meters and contours in feet issue to resolve. And I still believe the plan units are most likely meters based on your 615 x 510 surrounding box and a 2000 x 1500 foot looking Google maps plot area.

You’re making a fishing map of the lake bottom aren’t you?
I had now idea there was something this close to Atlanta. Has this been turned into a park of some sort? FYI, I am just up the road in Greenville, SC. Good luck on your career. Nothing in Charleston with Boing?

Take care,
david

RE: Opening point cloud in SolidWorks

(OP)
I don't know all the details of the project but I believe they are turning this into a park. I opened the drawing in SW again and it worked. My width of the quarry is 600 something. I will post back again with a finished point cloud.

No luck with Boeing or any other aerospace company. Very competitive.

RE: Opening point cloud in SolidWorks

Yes 600 of just the water basically, keep forgetting about that piece of the puzzle (vs. the entire 2000ft quarry) so I retract the plot coords being in meters, foots it is.

As far as career, hang in there something will come along. Have a GREAT weekend now that we will finally get a SUNNY one.

RE: Opening point cloud in SolidWorks

I will try another methods to create a solid mesh that can be imported into SW. I assume that is your real goal. The contour drawing looks good, but if you are trying to model the quarry walls I think you are missing some contours in the attached drawing. There is a TIN (triangulated iregular network) in the file that the surveyor created to generate the contours. I have attached an image of that in 3D with the contours.

Edit: I see you are only trying to model a small area now.

RE: Opening point cloud in SolidWorks

(OP)
Yes Brad!! That is what I was looking for. I had know idea that was in there. If I can get that mesh and make a surface from it that would be golden.

RE: Opening point cloud in SolidWorks

B05, that's cool looking, where the heck have you been the last hand full of hours, I probalby could have gotten something done today rather than play with roldy's project. Naaa, it's a slow Friday

Yaaaa, that "I see you are only trying to model a small area now" would have been good to know earlier on, it would have resolved a lot of the unit issue the data appeared to have

RE: Opening point cloud in SolidWorks

(OP)
Hahaha. In to save the day with one comment. I appreciate you djhurrayt helping me out.

RE: Opening point cloud in SolidWorks

This has been a fun and interesting thread. (However, I do think some of these questions should not have even needed to be asked, at least in this forum, as they should have been answered by the surveying team.)

I am very curious. Where is this quarry? It looks very similar to one I know.

- - -Updraft

RE: Opening point cloud in SolidWorks

(OP)
This is the Bellwood quarry in Atlanta.

RE: Opening point cloud in SolidWorks

Let us know if you find Jimmy Hoffa there.

RE: Opening point cloud in SolidWorks

Darn work... haha

I don't think it will work well to import the complete tin, so I created a mesh of just the contours in the drawing. The first trial mesh of the complete site was 350Mb, and SW will not like that very much. I attached a dwg with a solid model, but it does not sound like you have a package that can export this to an .iges or .step file for SW. I will post a link to an .iges file or sldprt later. I have to go to site for a few hours now and SW is still working on importing the .iges file created from CAD.

RE: Opening point cloud in SolidWorks

(OP)
Thanks a bunch Brad. I literally have spent 3 days working 12 hours doing data manipulation trying to figure out how to get a 3D model. You are a life saver.

RE: Opening point cloud in SolidWorks

(OP)
I would actually really appreciate getting the .iges file since I won't be in the office until Monday. I have SW 2012 at home.

RE: Opening point cloud in SolidWorks

Here is the SW file. I clicked on the wrong file, so this is a solid of the complete model. The SW file should look like the attached image. This is in SW2015. I can post the iges file a little later too. This file is not quite as large as I expected. Without re-sampling the points to reduce the quantity it will be difficult to make the file much smaller. I am not sure exactly what you are trying to do, so it seemed best to leave it as is.

https://www.hightail.com/download/ZWJWd0VESEJoMlVs...

RE: Opening point cloud in SolidWorks

The area you are interested in imported in minutes, so here it is too. I attached a picture of what it looks like at my end too. I didn't check the scale factor, but you can extract a couple of sections to check that and scale if you need to. This only took about an hour or so, but we have quite a few software packages and some practice. You peaked my interest with the point cloud aspect, and I have always wanted to see what I could do in SW with our scanner data. I learned something in the process.

iges file: https://www.hightail.com/download/ZWJWd0VORkVCMTd2...

2015 SW file of partial model: https://www.hightail.com/download/ZWJWd0VORkUzS29L...

RE: Opening point cloud in SolidWorks

(OP)
Wow. I really appreciate all of this. I am limited with available software. I may have to stop into work tomorrow and see if I can get into the office to work on this a little.

RE: Opening point cloud in SolidWorks

(OP)
I actually need to cut a tunnel through the surface. I have the sketch of the tunnel and I created an extruded surface. I used the trim tool to try and make this cut but SW keeps crashing. I'm not sure if there is any other way to do this. I also have been trying to convert this surface to a solid by using boundary surfaces and knitting them together but have had no luck. I have your assembly in my assembly because I have other features to add that are not to be combined with the quarry. Here is the link for the file https://www.dropbox.com/s/5qhq23qijfk9hlq/Land.zip....

Edit: I found a solution. I just extruded a sketch from the bottom to the surface and hid the surface. Now I can do all my operations on the solid.

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