Points Menu

Ordered data is a point cloud of consistent density whose points exist in orderly rows and/or columns.

Unordered data is a point cloud of variable density whose points exist at any location in space.

The type of data usually depends on the scanner that collected it. The set of tools on the Points menu depends on whether the Geomagic application has detected ordered or unordered points in the cloud.

The Points menu appears in the Point Phase only.

Points Menu items that appear with ordered and unordered data:

• Crop - deletes all non-selected (ordered) points.

• Delete - cuts all selected points from the object.

• Reduce Noise - reduces the number of errant points, result­ing in more uniform arrangement that can be wrapped more smoothly.

• Fill Holes - inserts ordered points into voids on the surface of an ordered point object.

• Fill Point Holes - inserts ordered points into voids on the surface of an unordered point object.

• Wrap - wraps “thin plastic sheeting” around the point cloud, which makes the visualization of polygons possible.

• Merge - merges two or more point objects into one, auto­matically performs a surface wrap, and places the resulting polygon object in the Model Manager.

• Points Menu items that appear with unordered data:

• Curvature Sample - reduces the number of points in the object to a percentage of the original, maintaining points near pro­nounced curvature.

• Grid Sample - (applicable to unordered data only) reduces the number of points in the point cloud by eliminating all but one point at uniform intervals on all three axes.

• Uniform Sample - (applicable to unordered data only) reduces the number of points on flat surfaces uniformly, but reduces the number of points on curved surfaces to a specified density.

• Random Sample - (applicable to unordered data only) reduces the density of points randomly.

• Interpolate Scanlines - (applicable to unordered point objects that have scanlines) optimizes point data in preparation for Points > Wrap.

• Order Scanlines - (applicable to unordered point objects that have scanlines) converts unordered data to ordered data.

• Add Points - adds individual points to a point object.

• Merge Point Objects - creates a single unordered point object from two or more unordered point objects.

• Offset - moves the points of one or more unordered point objects by a user-specified distance in their normal directions. This function sup­ports certain sheet-metal-related workflows.

• Repair Normals - manipulates oriented and unoriented normals on unordered point objects.

• Remove Normals - removes the normal information from points in a point object.

• Detect - (applicable to unordered data only) is a set of primitives that deduce the existence of geometric shapes (planes, and cylinders, and spheres) in a point object.

• Capture - (applicable to unordered data only) is a more manual method of identifying planes and cylinders than Points > Detect.

• Create - (applicable to unordered data only) inserts a plane or cyl­inder through a selected region.

• Fit - (applicable to unordered data only) is a set of functions that move a region of a point object into a perfect geometry.

• Project Points - maps the points in a 3D object onto a 2D plane.

• MicroScribe - a set of functions for use with the MicroScribe digi­tizer only.

Points Menu items that appear with ordered data:

• Ordered Sample - reduces the number of cells by a percent­age.

• Refine - subdivides all cells and thereby multiplies the number of cells by four.

• Filter Points - eliminates scan distortion, stretching, and overlap by eliminating points whose beam angle exceeds a certain value.