Point cloid reprojection along the path

[deepminder]

Hi,

I often use point cloud projection for curved objects. And it works very nice when object has cylindrical shape.
Another situation is with free-form objects. For example, I have a pointcloud of a road. And I need to "unroll" it into a straight line along the axis.
It's axis is not an arc so projection on the cylinder will not help. I need a projection on the vertical surface, which goes through the axis.
Is it possible to realize this function?
Earlier I was cutting the point cloud into several pieces, which are close to straight line or and arc, and made an analysis for each piece separately. But now I have 10 km of road in the mountains and previous approach doesn't work anymore.

[daniel]

I guess the 'Unfold' tool should help you:
http://www.cloudcompare.org/doc/wiki/in ... a_polyline

You can also look at this post: http://www.danielgm.net/cc/forum/viewto ... 1417#p5456

If I misunderstood your needs, don't hesitate to notify me (or ask any question about this tool otherwise).

[deepminder]

Yes, this is it! And it works perfectly!!!
Thanks!

[deepminder]

Hello again. Some new questions raised during work with "unfold" tool.
I need to make an analysis on every 20 meters of the unfolded cloud. But I can't find the start of the axis on the unfolded cloud.
I thought, that coordinate start (0;0 point) of the unfolded point cloud will be at the same place, where my axis starts. Or point cloud will be cropped by the extend of the axis. But as I see from the results, it is not.
It there a way to find the start of the axis on the unfolded cloud?

[daniel]

It seems that the unfolded cloud always starts at the minimum bounding-box corner (the bounding-box of the input cloud).

What would you expect exactly?