Reverse engineering point clouds from any 3D model

Point clouds are getting a lot of “press” lately, and they can be very useful.  But let’s say, hypothetically, that you have a 3D model of a building or a component and you want to deconstruct it back into a point cloud –  Can this be done?  Yes, and quite easily…

  1. Open the 3D model in 3dsMax
  2. Export to STL
  3. Import the STL into MeshLab (File – Import Mesh)
  4. Export the mesh as an XYZ file (File – Export Mesh As…)
  5. This XYZ file can now be imported into Recap, or indexed by Revit into a PCG, or used in various other software tools

Note:  You can also create STL files (steps 1 and 2) directly from Revit using the STL Exporter add-in.

Some of these tools were discussed at:
Free 3D PDF from Revit STL using Meshlab, MiKTeX and U3D-2-PDF

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