CloudCompare standalone viewer

[daniel]

Just a quick post to present a new tool in the CloudCompare family: a standalone viewer for simple and easy visualization of 3D entities.

The main aim is to provide CloudCompare users with a tool that can be easily shipped with the data they have processed in order to share the results with other people not necessarily interested in or capable of using CloudCompare.

Its main features are (as planned today):
- full window visualization with no toolbar, no icon and a single menu entry ("Options")
- automatic guess of the type of features stored in the file to minimize the need for intermediary loading dialogs (particularly for ASCII or PLY files)
- integration of existing "OpenGL filters" plugins (EDL, SSAO, etc.)
- support of CloudCompare features: scalar field handling, display of the color bar, etc.
- eventually, a new file format will be created:

• to allow metadata to be saved alongside 3D entities (such as the color-coding parameters of scalar fields, their names, maybe distances measured between points with the point picking tool, etc.
• with the option of making a 'read-only' file to prevent the person receiving the data to modify it (even with CloudCompare itself). The intended use is to distribute data to customers for preview only, for demonstration purposes, etc.

[jfhullo]

For my use, that would be a fantastic tool if you just add 2 small tools:
-a tool for simply computing distances
-the possibility to display in EDL.

Many people that don't use to work on 3D would then be able to simply measure and visualise.

Thanks anyway.

[dsartori]

The standalone viewer may well be ideal for my purposes. One question, though. You mention this project goal:

the option of making a 'read-only' file to prevent the person receiving the data to modify it (even with CloudCompare itself). The intended use is to distribute data to customers for preview only, for demonstration purposes, etc.

Has any progress been made towards this goal? Is it still something you are looking to do? If it is still a project goal but it is not currently being worked on, can you offer assistance to a developer to get started on this task? Are you open to collaboration in order to get such a feature included in the main product?

Thanks for your time.

[daniel]

Indeed, this is still in the "TODO" list.

It shouldn't be very hard to do, the only thing that will need some time is to define precisely what should be handled by this new format (clouds and/or meshes? options such as points size, even maybe the camera settings? etc.). There will be two versions of this format (one "editable" by CloudCompare, and the other read-only, reserved to CCViewer).

Of course, as this project is open-source, any average skilled developer will be able to make CloudCompare able to open the read-only version... But for standard non-developer users, it shouldn't be possible.