Manual Alignment Tools (Requires BIM & CAD Module)

Created by John Tapia, Modified on Wed, 12 Apr 2023 at 11:31 PM by John Tapia

Follow these instructions to manually align multiple scan data sets together in Cintoo Cloud, or to align your scans and BIM model together if they are not in the same coordinate system.

  • You must be assigned a role with "Upload or Delete Reality Data" permissions enabled in order to use the Manual Alingnment Tools.
  • In order to align multiple scan data sets together, each set of scans must be organized into their own individual, separate Work Zone folders. (See step 9 in these instructions)


1. In the 3D View tab, make sure the Work Zone folders containing the 3D data you wish to align are toggled on and the 3D data is visible in the view.



2. Click the Manual Alignment Tools icon in the left toolbar to open the alignment tool.




3. In the "To align" field, select the data set which the alignment transforms will be applied to.

  • Selecting "All scans" will apply the alignment modifications to all visible scan files in the 3D View.
  • Selecting "All models" will apply the alignment modifications to all visible model files in the 3D View.
  • Selecting a specific Work Zone folder will apply the alignment modifications only to the files contained within the selected Work Zone.



4. In the "Reference" field, select the data set to use as a reference. Any alignment transforms made will not affect the data assigned in the "Reference" field.




5. To move the data assigned in the "To align" field, modify the X-Axis, Y-Axis, and Z-Axis values under Translation.

  • You can type numeric values in the text fields, or hover your mouse cursor above each text field and use the mouse scroll wheel to increase or descrease the values:
    •  Holding the CTRL key and scrolling the mouse wheel up/down will adjust in increments of +/- 10
    • Holding the ALT key and scrolling the mouse wheel up/down will adjust in increments of +/- 0.1
    • Holding the SHIFT key and scrolling the mouse wheel up/down will adjust in increments of +/- 0.01


6. To rotate the data assigned in the "To align" field, click "Pick Pivot Point," select a location on the data to use as rotation pivot point, and adjust the X-axis, Y-Axis, and Z-Axis sliders, or type in numeric values in the text field.

  • You can also hover your mouse cursor above each text field and use the mouse scroll wheel to increase or decrease the values. 
  • You may re-select the pivot point at any time, and you may select various scan positions to view the rotation adjustment.



7. Use the "Visibility" slider to adjust the opacity/transparency of each data set and visually check the alignment.

  • During the alignment process, navigation in the scene can be in "3D Navigation" mode or in "Scan Mode" ("3D RGB" or "3D Surface" display mode) to get a more accurate visualization.




8. Once you are satisfied with the alignment, click "Apply" to save it.

  • CAUTION: Alignment cannot be undone once you click "Apply" to save it.
  • If you have applied alignment transforms to scan data, this transformation will carry over and be applied when downloading and exporting your scans from Cintoo as a point cloud (RCP, RCS, E57).




9. To align multiple scan data sets together, assign the Work Zone folder with scans to align in the "To align" field, and assign the Work Zone folder with scans to use as a reference in the "Reference" field.



10. Follow the same instructions as steps 5-8 above in order to align the scans together and save the alignment.



  • During the alignment process, color overrides can be applied to the data assigned in the "To align" and "Reference" fields for a more accurate visualization.







Was this article helpful?

That’s Great!

Thank you for your feedback

Sorry! We couldn't be helpful

Thank you for your feedback

Let us know how can we improve this article!

Select atleast one of the reasons

Feedback sent

We appreciate your effort and will try to fix the article