Free Point Cloud Viewer - Brand it and Share it!

A free and customizable point cloud viewer you can share with your clients and teams.
This video will outline the steps to download, setup, and add your personal brand and feel to the viewer so that you can distribute it.
The Potree point cloud viewer has been around for many years. It began with the web viewer and was optimized to display millions or even billions of points from photogrammetry or LiDAR point clouds, even over slower connections or on older workstations.
Laster, the desktop version (Potree Desktop) was released and using it is as simple as dragging and dropping a point cloud into the viewer. If you like, you can also customize it further, turning it into something unique that represents your brand.
Potree is the work of Markus Schuetz and can be found on www.potree.org/
The point cloud used in this video is from www.dronemapper.com/sample_data/
This is not a sponsored video
How you can support my work
-------------------------------------------------
Book a consulting session with me:
tinyurl.com/4rz33j2d
Please consider buying me a coffee:
www.buymeacoffee.com/geospati...
Hire me on Upwork:
www.upwork.com/freelancers/~0...
00:00 - Origin Story
00:25 - Download and Install Potree Desktop
01:30 - Preparing the Point Cloud
03:40 - Adding a Point Cloud to Potree Desktop
04:50 - Using the Potree Desktop Tools
10:30 - Customize Potree Desktop with your Brand and Feel
14:20 - Third Party Examples and Ideas for You

[@simonaltman5038]

What an awesome video. This'll be a game changer. Thank you so much!

[@geospatialtips]

Thanks for watching and the kind comment too! Hope it helps you as much as you expect. Cheers

[@KILLAHUNT1]

Super useful and awesome video as usual, keep up the great work Mark! Thanks for all that you do

[@geospatialtips]

My pleasure! I appreciate your kind comments.

[@leminhcong9979]

Thank for your video

[@wouterviljoen857]

Your videos are great!! Thank you. Have you ever considered doing a video on point classification on Agisoft? I am specifically interested in ground-point classification

[@OXIDEFPV]

Very cool this has always been a pain to send large demanding point fluids to clients with crappy computers thank you 🙏

[@geospatialtips]

Happy to help!

[@OXIDEFPV]

@@geospatialtips actually you have helped me massively dude I put together a few models as a presentation I followed your filtering video and had excellent results, that presentation has now allowed me to quit my day job and do uav mapping as a new job for my local university thank you so so much

[@brynmorgan1513]

Great video

[@geospatialtips]

Thanks!

[@gobi6316]

Awesome video. How can I adjust it to show for example; RGB colors,but by clicking another button,to switch to deviations colors. Or any other attribute of point cloud?

[@DeepApnea]

Hello, could you please explain how I can add the images with the orientations ?

[@MrABN143]

Nice video 👍👍👍 thank you so much

[@geospatialtips]

Welcome 😊

[@SalihinNekmat]

Hi, what file formats can be opened on this software (potree) other than .las format?

[@mandata143]

Wow. Thank you! Btw, in order to make this as live website. We need to learn HTML, CSS and JS first?

[@geospatialtips]

Hi! No, you don't need to know any of that. The software will create the files you need and you would need to upload them to a server. At worst you may need to edit a couple lines in the HTML file, to make sure you are pointing to the data, but that's all.

[@mandata143]

​@@geospatialtipsThank you for the tips. 😊

[@amisauto4360]

Thank you

[@hugopinto953]

One more amazing video. Thank you. Would you know if this is possible to run in a website?

[@geospatialtips]

Hi, thanks for watching. Yes, absolutely it can be run in a website. You would upload the same package and edited HTML file to your site and make sure everything is pointing to the right place.

[@halo112az]

Thanks for this awesome video. I have no idea how to use coding... could you to a tutorial or just an explenaition in chat on how to instal a plugin like from phoenix?

[@geospatialtips]

Hi - thanks for watching! What Phoeinix Lidar has done is invest in a paid programmer to edit the original Potree files to create the view you see on their website. There are a few key files to be edited. This is so far as I know because I am also not a programmer and have little knowledge of this myself. The index.html file is the first file to be edited as this file calls all of the others that make Potree function. Then, under libs/potree you will see sidebar.html, potree.js and potree.css These files affect most of the functionality and appearance of Potree and can or will need to be edited to create the desired output such as what Phoenix has created. You can start smaller, or simpler, with just the web viewer that will look the same as the desktop viewer and that you can obtain from Potree.org It will be the full set of files that you will need on your web-server, along with your point cloud, so that you can view and measure the data via a web url. If you still need more direction, email me at [e-mail] and I can try to direct you a bit more, but as I said above, I'm no programmer myself and so I can only make a few suggestions, but not tell you exactly how to edit the viewer as much as Phoenix has.

[@tombeier2675]

Very helpful Video, thanks a lot! Is there a chance to show/display the "textured model"in addition to the point cloud too as it is possible in the Potree viewer that comes with WebODM? Thank you once more again.

[@geospatialtips]

I've never tried it myself, but looking at the Potree Github, there are some examples where Cesium is incorporated. This might be the way to do it with Potree, using Cesium as the meshed model container. Sorry I can't be of more help.

[@tombeier2675]

@@geospatialtips Thank you!

[@jeandregeyser1165]

Do you know how to prevent the software from zeroing the elevation to the lowest point and retain the original heights?

[@geospatialtips]

Hi Jeandre You will want to set the scene view and position to a value you desire. In the index.html file you'll find these lines of html code at about line 287. Set both the viewer.scene.view.position and viewer.scene.view.Lookat values to make Potree open and look at the exact position you desire.

[@user-ex4xi4rp6f]

Hello there, thanks for the tutorial. i have followed your workflow from agisoft to potree. however, when i drag and drop las it is not displaying RGB value, rather just white pointcloud! any idea how to display real rgb pointclouds

[@geospatialtips]

Hi. Thanks for watching the videos. Please confirm that you calculated the point colours in Metashape, which I am sure you did, and secondly please confirm that when you exported the point cloud from Metashape you selected the option to export RGB values? If yes, have you viewed the point cloud in another software and confirmed the RGB values work there? Let me know and I’ll try and help.

[@user-ex4xi4rp6f]

1000 thanks, i have revisted your agisoft tutorial and found out that i need to classify the points and when imported to potree the RGB is up and running. sincerely appericiate the kind people @@geospatialtips

[@user-ex4xi4rp6f]

Hello again, when i drag and drop the Las into Potree Desktop, it only generates json and octree. But it is not generating html files as you have show, do i have to work through potree convetrer to generate the html. Thanking in advance

[@geospatialtips]

Hi The html file is part of the potree base software and not created by the point cloud conversion process. You will see the html file is with the bat file that you clicked to open potree, not with the point cloud data. Hope that helps!

[@jemza1303]

Do you know a software to draw vectors from a point cloud (roads, roofs, embankment ... for topographic plan) ?

[@geospatialtips]

Are you looking to do this automatically or manually? You could use any GIS or CAD package, load the points and do it manually. Also, if it is more detailed and 3D you need, something like TopoDOT works pretty well from what I have seen, especially for roads and similar surveys. There aren't many automated tools that I have seen that do this all yet. Some do some components, such as powerlines, but I don't know of anything that can map it all in an automated way - yet.

[@jemza1303]

Thanks for your answer. First, I will try manually. Metashape enables to do so. Topodot seems a bit complex, and only in english ... I'm french ;-)

[@sandromarano11]

can you insert vector files and obj files into potree?

[@geospatialtips]

Yes you can. There are a few methods. If you Google it, you'll be taken to various resources that should be able to guide you through it.

[@paulharty3068]

Can this be used a web viewer i.e. upload it to a website?

[@geospatialtips]

Hi Paul. Yes certainly. The example shown from Phoenix LiDAR is exactly that, a Potree viewer on their website. In this instance you would not use Potree Desktop, you would rather use the standard Potree app and upload that to the web server, along with your point cloud. The functionality will be the same.

[@surjer69]

Thanks for the video! I am investigating different viewers and this looks promising. However, I had to install "electron" for it to run. I see in the original dev it says you can just "host on a site" which make me think it should not have any dependancies? Anyways, did you all have to install electron to get it to work? my potree.bat file says start ./node_modules/electron/dist/electron.exe ./main

[@geospatialtips]

Hi - I have used the viewer many times, on different workstations, and the need to install electron is based on the workstation and what had been previously installed. So yes, sometimes I have had to install electron but this is not usually the case. For the online viewer you won't need electron and can post the package directly to the web server and it usually works quite easily.

[@surjer69]

@@geospatialtips thanks for the reply. Glad to know that was not an unusual scenario.