20. Working with Point Clouds

Introduction to Point Clouds
Point Clouds Properties

20.1. Introduction to Point Clouds 

What is A Point Cloud?

A point cloud is a three-dimensional image of a space made up of many individual of data points (up to billions, even trillions). Each of the points has an x, y and z coordinate. Depending on the capture method, point clouds usually also have additional attributes that came from the capture, such as color values or intensity. These attributes can be used, for instance, to display point clouds in different colors. In QGIS, a point cloud can be used to generate a three-dimensional image of the landscape (or of another space).

Supported Formats

QGIS supports the data formats Entwine Point Tile (EPT) and LAS/LAZ. To work with point clouds, QGIS always saves the data in EPT. EPT is a storage format that consists of several files stored in a common folder. To allow quick access to the data, EPT uses indexing. For more information on the EPT format, see entwine homepage

If the data is in LAS or LAZ format, QGIS will convert it to EPT when it is loaded for the first time. Depending on the size of the file, this may take some time. In this process, a subfolder is created in the folder in which the LAS/LAZ file is located according to the scheme ept_ + name_LAS/LAZ_file. If such a subfolder already exists, QGIS loads the EPT immediately (which leads to a reduced loading time).

Worth Knowing

In QGIS it is not (yet) possible to edit point clouds. If you want to manipulate your point cloud, you can use CloudCompare, an open source point cloud processing tool. Also the Point Data Abstraction Library (PDAL - similar to GDAL) offers you options to edit point clouds (PDAL is command line only).

Due to the large number of data points, it is not possible to display an attribute table of point clouds in QGIS. However, the Identify tool supports point clouds, so you can display all attributes, even of a single data point.

20.2. Point Clouds Properties 

The Layer Properties dialog for a point cloud layer offers general settings for the layer and its rendering. It also provides information about the layer.

Toegang tot het dialoogvenster Laag-eigenschappen:

In the Layers panel, double-click the layer or right-click and select Properties… from the context menu;
Ga naar menu Kaartlagen ► Laageigenschappen… als de laag is geselecteerd.

The point cloud Layer Properties dialog provides the following sections:

Information	Source	Symbology^[1]
3D View^[1]	Rendering	Elevation^[1]
Metadata	Statistics

^[1] Ook beschikbaar in het paneel Laag opmaken

Notitie

Most of the properties of a point cloud layer can be saved to or loaded from a .qml file using the Style menu at the bottom of the properties dialog. More details at Laageigenschappen opslaan en delen

20.2.1. Eigenschappen Informatie 

De tab Informatie is alleen-lezen en is een interessante plek om snel wat overzichtsinformatie en metadata over de huidige laag op te pakken. Verschafte informatie is:

General such as name in the project, source path, last save time and size, the used provider
Based on the provider of the layer: extent and number of points
The Coordinate Reference System: name, units, method, accuracy, reference (i.e. whether it’s static or dynamic)
Metadata delivered by the provider: creation date, version, data format, scale X/Y/Z, …
Picked from the Metadata tab (where they can be edited): access, extents, links, contacts, history…

../../../_images/point_cloud_information.png — Fig. 20.1 Point cloud information tab

20.2.2. Eigenschappen Bron 

In the Source tab you can see and edit basic information about the point cloud layer:

Settings: Set a Layer name different from the layer filename that will be used to identify the layer in the project (in the Layers Panel, with expressions, in print layout legend,…)
Assigned Coordinate Reference System (CRS): Here you can change the layer’s assigned Coordinate Reference System, selecting a recently used one in the drop-down list or clicking on set Projection Select CRS button (see Keuze Coördinaten ReferentieSysteem). Use this process only if the CRS applied to the layer is a wrong one or if none was applied.

../../../_images/point_cloud_source.png — Fig. 20.2 Point cloud source tab

20.2.3. Eigenschappen Symbologie 

In the Symbology tab the settings for the rendering of the point cloud are made. There are different options for rendering point clouds that can be selected using the drop-down menu at the top of the Symbology tab (see Fig. 20.3):

Extent Only: Only a bounding box of the extent of the data is displayed; the symbol can be changed with the Standaard vulling dialog by clicking in the line, clicking on the arrow at the end leads you to De sneltoets voor keuzelijst Kleur.
Attribute by Ramp: The data is drawn over a color gradient. See Attribute by Ramp Renderer
RGB: Draw the data using red, green and blue color values. See RGB Renderer
Classification: The data is drawn using different colors for different classes. See Classification Renderer

When a point cloud is loaded, QGIS follows a logic to select the best renderer:

if the dataset contains color information (red, green, blue attributes), the RGB renderer will be used
else if the dataset contains a Classification attribute, the classified renderer will be used
else it will fall back to rendering based on Z attribute

If you do not know the attributes of the point cloud, the Statistics tab provides a good overview of which attributes are contained in the point cloud and in which ranges the values are located.

../../../_images/point_cloud_symbology_overview.png — Fig. 20.3 Point cloud symbology tab

In the upper part of the Symbology tab, the settings of the different renderers can be found. In the lower part there are sections with which general settings for the entire layer can be made and which are the same for all renderers:

Under Point Symbol, the size and the unit (e.g. millimeters, pixels, inches) with which each data point is displayed can be set. Either Circle or Square can be selected as the style for the points.
In the Layer Rendering section you have the following options to modify the rendering of the layer:
- Maximum error: Point clouds usually contains more points than are needed for the display. By this option you set how dense or sparse the display of the point cloud will be (this can also be understood as ‘maximum allowed gap between points’). If you set a large number (e.g. 5 mm), there will be visible gaps between points. Low value (e.g. 0.1 mm) could force rendering of unnecessary amount of points, making rendering slower (different units can be selected).
- Opacity: You can make the underlying layer in the map canvas visible with this tool. Use the slider to adapt the visibility of your layer to your needs. You can also make a precise definition of the percentage of visibility in the menu beside the slider.
- Blending mode: You can achieve special rendering effects with these tools. The pixels of your overlaying and underlying layers are mixed through the settings described in Meng-modi.

20.2.3.1. Attribute by Ramp Renderer 

With Attribute by Ramp, the data can be displayed by numerical values over a color gradient. Such numerical values can be, for example, an existing intensity attribute or the Z-value. Depending on a minimum and a maximum value, the other values are spread to the color gradient via interpolation. The distinct values and their assignment to a certain color are called “color map” and are shown in the table. There are various setting options, which are described below the figure.

../../../_images/point_cloud_attribute_by_ramp.png — Fig. 20.4 Point cloud symbology tab: Attribute by Ramp

Min and Max define the range that is applied to the color ramp: the Min value represents the left, the Max value the right end of the color ramp, the values in between are interpolated. By default QGIS detects the minimum and the maximum from the selected attribute but they can be modified. Once you have changed the values, you can restore the defaults by clicking on the Load button.
The Interpolation entry defines how values are assigned their color:
- Afzonderlijk (een symbool <= verschijnt in de kop van de kolom Waarde): De kleur wordt genomen uit het dichtstbijzijnde item van de kleurenkaart met een gelijke of hogere waarde
- Linear The color is linearly interpolated from the color map entries above and below the pixel value, meaning that to each dataset value corresponds a unique color
- Exact (een symbool = verschijnt in de kop van de kolom Waarde): Alleen op pixels met een waarde die gelijk is aan een item van de kleurenkaart wordt een kleur toegepast; andere worden niet gerenderd.
The Color ramp widget helps you select the color ramp to assign to the dataset. As usual with this widget, you can create a new one and edit or save the currently selected one.
Het Label voor achtervoegsel eenheid voegt een label toe na de waarde in de legenda, en de Precisie label beheert het aantal decimalen dat moet worden weergegeven.

De classificatie Modus helpt u te definiëren hoe waarden over de klassen worden verdeeld:

Continuous: Classes number and color are fetched from the color ramp stops; limits values are set following stops distribution in the color ramp (you can find more information on stops in Een kleurverloop instellen).
Equal interval: The number of classes is set by the Classes field at the end of the line; limits values are defined so that the classes all have the same magnitude.

The classes are determined automatically and shown in the color map table. But you can also edit these classes manually:

Double clicking in a Value in the table lets you modify the class value
Double clicking in the Color column opens the Kleur selecteren widget, where you can select a color to apply for that value
Double clicking in the Label column to modify the label of the class
Right-clicking over selected rows in the color table shows a contextual menu to Change Color… and Change Opacity… for the selection

Below the table there are the options to restore the default classes with Classify or to manually ^Add values or ^Delete selected values from the table.

Since a customized color map can be very complex, there is also the option to ^Load an existing color map or to ^Save it for use in other layers (as a txt file).

If you have selected Linear for Interpolation, you can also configure:

Clip out of range values By default, the linear method assigns the first class (respectively the last class) color to values in the dataset that are lower than the set Min (respectively greater than the set Max) value. Check this setting if you do not want to render those values.
Legend settings, for display in the Layers panel and in the layout legend. More details at Customize Color Ramp Legend.

Customize Color Ramp Legend 

Since the customization works the same way as with a raster layer, you can find information in the raster data chapter under Legenda van raster aanpassen.

20.2.3.2. RGB Renderer 

With the RGB renderer, three selected attributes from the point cloud will be used as the red, green and blue component. If the attributes are named accordingly, QGIS selects them automatically and fetches Min and Max values for each band and scales the coloring accordingly. However, it is also possible to modify the values manually.

A Contrast enhancement method can be applied to the values: No Enhancement, Stretch to MinMax, Stretch and Clip to MinMax and Clip to MinMax

Notitie

The Contrast enhancement tool is still under development. If you have problems with it, you should use the default setting Stretch to MinMax.

../../../_images/point_cloud_rgb.png — Fig. 20.5 The point cloud RGB renderer

20.2.3.3. Classification Renderer 

In the Classification rendering, the point cloud is shown differentiated by color on the basis of an attribute. Any type of attribute can be used (numeric, string, …). Point cloud data often includes a field called Classification. This usually contains data determined automatically by post-processing, e.g. about vegetation. With Attribute you can select the field from the attribute table that will be used for the classification. By default, QGIS uses the definitions of the LAS specification (see table ‘ASPRS Standard Point Classes’ in the PDF on ASPRS home page). However, the data may deviate from this schema; in case of doubt, you have to ask the person or institution from which you received the data for the definitions.

../../../_images/point_cloud_classification.png — Fig. 20.6 The point cloud classification renderer

In the table all used values are displayed with the corresponding color and legend. At the beginning of each row there is a check box; if it is unchecked, this value is no longer shown on the map. With double click in the table, the Color, the Value and the Legend can be modified (for the color, the Kleur selecteren widget opens).

Below the table there are buttons with which you can change the default classes generated by QGIS:

With the Classify button the data can be classified automatically: all values that occur in the attributes and are not yet present in the table are added
With ^Add and ^Delete, values can be added or removed manually
Delete All removes all values from the table

20.2.4. Eigenschappen 3D-weergave 

In the 3D View tab you can make the settings for the rendering of the point cloud in 3D maps. Following options can be selected from the drop down menu at the top of the tab:

No Rendering: Data are not displayed
Single Color: All points are displayed in the same color regardless of attributes
Attribute by Ramp: See Attribute by Ramp Renderer
RGB: See RGB Renderer
Classification: See Classification Renderer

../../../_images/point_cloud_3d_view.png — Fig. 20.7 The point cloud 3D view tab with the classification renderer

In the lower part of the 3D View tab you can find the Point Symbol section. Here you can make general settings for the entire layer which are the same for all renderers. There are the following options:

Point size: The size (in pixels) with which each data point is displayed can be set
Maximum screen space error: By this option you set how dense or sparse the display of the point cloud will be (in pixels). If you set a large number (e.g. 10), there will be visible gaps between points; low value (e.g. 0) could force rendering of unnecessary amount of points, making rendering slower (you can find more details at Symbology Maximum error).
Point budget: To avoid long rendering, you can set the maximum number of points that will be rendered
Point cloud size: For your information only, the total number of points is shown here
Show bounding boxes: Especially useful for debugging, shows bounding boxes of nodes in hierarchy

20.2.5. Rendering 

Under the Scale dependent visibility group box, you can set the Maximum (inclusive) and Minimum (exclusive) scale, defining a range of scale in which features will be visible. Out of this range, they are hidden. The ^{Set to current canvas scale} button helps you use the current map canvas scale as boundary of the range visibility. See Visibility Scale Selector for more information.

Notitie

You can also activate scale dependent visibility on a layer from within the Layers panel: right-click on the layer and in the contextual menu, select Set Layer Scale Visibility.

../../../_images/point_cloud_rendering.png — Fig. 20.8 The point cloud rendering tab

20.2.6. Elevation Properties 

In the Elevation tab, you can set corrections for the Z-values of the data. This may be necessary to adjust the elevation of the data in 3D maps. There are two setting options:

You can set a Scale: If 10 is entered here, a point that has a value Z=``5`` is displayed at a height of 50.
An offset to the z-level can be entered. This is useful to match different data sources in its height to each other. By default, the lowest z-value contained in the data is used as this value. This value can also be restored with the ^Refresh button at the end of the line.

../../../_images/point_cloud_elevation.png — Fig. 20.9 The point cloud elevation tab

20.2.7. Metadata 

De tab Metadata verschaft u opties om een rapport met metadata voor uw laag te maken en te bewerken. Bekijk Metadata voor meer informatie.

20.2.8. Statistics Properties 

In the Statistics tab you can get an overview of the attributes of your point cloud and their distribution.

At the top you will find the section Attribute Statistics. Here all attributes contained in the point cloud are listed, as well as some of their statistical values: Minimum, Maximum, Mean, Standard Deviation

If there is an attribute Classification, then there is another table in the lower section. Here all values contained in the attribute are listed, as well as their absolute Count and relative % abundance.

../../../_images/point_cloud_statistics.png — Fig. 20.10 The point cloud statistics tab