Uploading Drone Data

Photos shot with a drone and processed using photogrammetry solutions such as Pix4D or Drone Deploy produce an ‘unstructured’ colored point cloud. Uploading this resulting unstructured point cloud in Cintoo Cloud requires the installation and use of Cintoo Connect 2.5 or later. Check this section to see how to install the latest Cintoo Connect version.

Cintoo Connect will then process this unstructured point cloud and ‘restructure’ it automatically.

• ‘Restructuring’ means that Cintoo Connect will create Virtual Vantage Points (VVPs) as if your drone data was coming from a ‘flying’ tripod-mounted static scanners, thus facilitating the navigation experience.
• The resolution of those newly created VVPs is computed automatically based on the resolution of your source unstructured point cloud.
• There is no compromise on point cloud accuracy or density when using this process.
• Each of those newly created VVPs will count as one scan in your scan capacity.
• You may download and export your newly created VVPs from Cintoo Cloud as a unified or structured point cloud as you would do with your static scan data.
• You may of course merge static scans, mobile scans and VVPs in Cintoo Cloud and navigate between them as long as they share the same coordinate system.
  

Restrictions

Cintoo Connect supports the following drone data:

• Horizontal flights only, that can be at various altitudes.
  • Not covered: vertical flights along building facades or electric towers for example.
    

• Point cloud density higher than 250 points per square meter (= 23 points per square foot).
• Point cloud in E57 format
• LAS / LAZ format supported in a future release.
  • Please check this section convert your LAS / LAZ files into E57 files.
• If the point cloud is georeferenced, the E57 must have a pose.
• For linear infrastructure, each project must be smaller than 10 kilometers or 6.2 miles (= distance between the most extreme points of the project). Recommendation: If the project is larger than 10 km, it is recommended that you split your source point cloud in smaller chunks. You can then process each chunk with a separate Cintoo Connect instance that can run in parallel on your computer and import each chunk in a separate project.

Importing Drone Data Using Cintoo Connect

• Select ‘Upload Scans’ in your selected project and Work Zone.
• Select the ‘Drone’ tab.
  
• Select your point cloud file in E57 format.
• Select the average distance between VVPs (in meters).
• An import time will be given to you (order of magnitude). Please check the section below as well (Processing Times).
• Click on ‘Import’.
• Check the ‘Messages’ tab from time to time to see if the process is running smoothly.
• Your new VVPs will appear one by one in your Cintoo Cloud project.
  

Merging Point Clouds in E57 File

• You may import an E57 file that contains multiple point clouds. In which case, you are being offered to merge all the point clouds before the upload, or to upload the first one only.
• If you select to import an E57 file that contains multiple point clouds, you will be prompted the following message:
  

• If you select to merge the point clouds, the following message will appear in Cintoo Connect:
  

• If you select to import the first point cloud only, the following message will be displayed:
  

Processing Time using Cintoo Connect

The information below is given for reference and may vary depending on the capacity of your Windows-based computer running Cintoo Connect. Please check this section for desktop or laptop hardware recommendations.
Processing times and number of Virtual Vantage Points generated are estimated and may vary depending on your point cloud density as well. In the tables below, 2 point cloud densities are given as examples: 250 points per square meter (= 23 points per square foot) and 2,500 points per square meter (= 230 points per square foot).

Recommendation: If the area to process is very large and if you want to speed up your processing time, it is recommended that you split your source point cloud in smaller chunks. You can then process each chunk with a separate Cintoo Connect instance that can run in parallel on your computer.