CloudCompare forum

I'm looking to understand if CC could be used for the kinds of applications I'm interested in. I'm looking to compare two meshs (or just the nodes extrated from them) to each other. Since they are finite element models the point density is no where near where it would be for laser scanning for example. But I assume I could use the point to local surface capability to moderate that.

Can CC "best fit" two point clouds to minimize the differences before doing a distance comparison?

Can CC deal with CAD data directly? I expected to see STL or STEP as a import capability at least. I guess I would need to find something that could convert stl to ply format?

Pete Foss
General Motors R&D

Thanks for you interest in CC.

Indeed, CC can compute distances between a point cloud and a mesh directly. So you can either compare your mesh nodes to the other mesh, or alternatively sample points on one mesh (with a very high density) and compare the resulting cloud with the other mesh.

There's also a registration algorithm (ICP) that can be use to make 2 clouds or meshes fit as best as possible (the 2 entities must be already close to each other, as this is only a local optimization). If necessary, there's a manual tool available to perform the initial rough registration.

And eventually, there's a STL input filter in preparation (it should be finished very soon) and meanwhile I believe Meshlab can import STL files (at least) and export equivalent PLY or OBJ files.

Thanks Daniel.