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Point Cloud for AutoCAD – Reverse engineering plug-in for AutoCAD


In this tutorial we will drape a surface over a point cloud.


Step 1: Start AutoCAD.

Step 2: Click Import Points from the PointCloud menu or type PCImportPoints at the AutoCAD command prompt.

Step 3: The Point File dialog box is displayed. Browse for the file Drape Surface Sample 2.txt (typically located in C:\Program Files\SYCODE\Point Cloud for AutoCAD\Samples\) and click Open from the Open dialog box.

Step 4: Select the format and delimiters in the Point File dialog box and click OK.

Step 5: Zoom to the extents of the drawing (View->Zoom->Extents). You will find the points from Drape Surface Sample 2.txt imported into the current model.

Step 6: Click Drape Surface from the PointCloud menu or type PCDrapeSurface at the AutoCAD command prompt.

Step 7: Select all the points and press Enter. At the Point Cloud for AutoCAD Options set the command options and press Enter.

Step 8: The Surface Parameters dialog box is displayed. Do not modify the parameters. Click Ok to accept the default values.

A mesh surface is draped over the point cloud. As you can see the surface is highly uneven.

This is because the points are not evenly spaced although the points seem to be in the form of a regular matrix. The calculated values for rows and columns are 52 and 56 respectively. Let us now find out how many rows and columns of points are actually present.

Step 9: Delete the surface, switch to the top view (View->3D Views->Top) of the model.

Step 10: Drag select the top most row of points as shown below and type Scale and press Enter when done. At the AutoCAD command prompt notice that the command prompt reports "102 found". So we now know that there are 102 columns of points.

Step 11: Drag select the right most column of points as shown below and type Scale and press Enter when done. At the AutoCAD command prompt notice that the command prompt reports "29 found". So we now know that there are 29 rows of points.

Step 12:  Repeat Step 6 and this time enter 102 and 29 for the number of columns and rows respectively. This time we get the required even surface.

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