Potree-core-viral NPM

Potree Core

This project was originally based on Potree Viewer 1.6 and is now since version 2.0 based on the shiukaheng fork of the Potree-Loader.
Potree is a web based pouint cloud visualizer project created by Markus Schütz.
This project contains only the main parts of the potree project adapted to be more easily used as a independent library, the code was adapted from the original repositorys.
Support for pointclouds from LAS, LAZ, Binary files and Greyhound server.
TODO
Supports logarithmic depth buffer (just by enabling it on the threejs renderer), useful for large scale visualization.
Point clouds are automatically updated, frustum culling is used to avoid unnecessary updates (better update performance for multiple point clouds).

How to use

Download the custom potree build from the build folder or add it to your project using NPM.
- https://www.npmjs.com/package/potree-core
Include it alonside the worker folder in your project (can be found on the source folder).
Download threejs from github repository.
- https://github.com/mrdoob/three.js/tree/dev/build
The build is a ES module, that can be imported to other projects, it assumes the existence of THREE namespace for threejs dependencies.

Testing

The project can be build running the commands npm install and npm run build.

Demo

Live demo at https://tentone.github.io/potree-core/
Contains the same model multiple times stored in different formats.
Double click the models to raycast the scene and create marker points.

Example

Bellow its a fully functional example of how to use this wrapper to load potree point clouds to a THREE.js project

var scene = new THREE.Scene();
var camera = new THREE.PerspectiveCamera(60, 1, 0.1, 10000);

var canvas = document.createElement("canvas");
canvas.style.position = "absolute";
canvas.style.top = "0px";
canvas.style.left = "0px";
canvas.style.width = "100%";
canvas.style.height = "100%";
document.body.appendChild(canvas);

var renderer = new THREE.WebGLRenderer({canvas:canvas});

var geometry = new THREE.BoxGeometry(1, 1, 1);
var material = new THREE.MeshBasicMaterial({color: 0x00ff00});
var cube = new THREE.Mesh(geometry, material);
scene.add(cube);

var controls = new THREE.OrbitControls(camera, canvas);
camera.position.z = 10;

var points = new Potree.Group();
points.setPointBudget(10000000)
scene.add(points);

Potree.loadPointCloud("data/test/cloud.js", name, function(data)
{
	var pointcloud = data.pointcloud;
	points.add(pointcloud);
});

function loop()
{
	controls.update();
	renderer.render(scene, camera);
	requestAnimationFrame(loop);
};
loop();

document.body.onresize = function()
{
	var width = window.innerWidth;
	var height = window.innerHeight;
	renderer.setSize(width, height);
	camera.aspect = width / height;
	camera.updateProjectionMatrix();
}
document.body.onresize();

Notes

Since potree-core is meant to be used as library and not as a full software as potree some features are not available.
EDL shading is not supported by potree core.
Removed classification and clipping functionality.
Removed Arena 4D point cloud support.
GUI elements were removed from the library
- PotreeViewer
- Controls, Input, GUI, Tools
- Anotations, Actions, ProfileRequest
- Potree.startQuery, Potree.endQuery and Potree.resolveQueries
- Potree.timerQueries
- Potree.MOUSE, Potree.CameraMode
- PotreeRenderer, RepRenderer, Potree.Renderer
  - JQuery, TWEEN and Proj4 dependencies

Potree Converter

Use the (Potree Converter)https://github.com/potree/PotreeConverter/releases tool to create point cloud data from LAS, ZLAS or BIN point cloud files
Potree Converter 1.8 creates a multi file structure with each node as an individual file.
Potree Converter 2.1 creates a single file for all points and separates files for hierarchy index, its faster to create files. Requires a HTTP server configured for file streaming.
Tool to create hierarquical structure used for point-cloud rendering using potree-core.
There are two main versions 2.1 witch generates 4 contained files with point data, hierarchy,
To generate a folder output from a input file run the command .\PotreeConverter '..\input.laz' -o ../output

TXT2LAS

The potree converter tool only supports las and laz files, so textural file formats such as .pts, .xyz, have to be first converted into a supported format.
The TXT2LAS tool from the (LASTools)https://github.com/LAStools/LAStools repository can be used for this effect.
To run the tool use the command .\txt2las64 -i input.pts -ipts -parse xyziRGB -set_scale 0.001 0.001 0.001 -set_version 1.4 -o output.laz

API Reference

The project has no generated documentation but bellow are some of the main configuration elements.
A example can be found in the repository index.html file.

Potree.BasicGroup

Container that stores point cloud objects and updates them on render.
The container supports frustum culling using the point cloud bouding box.
Automatically stops updating the point cloud if out of view.
This container only support pointColorType set as RGB, pointSizeType set as FIXED and shape set as SQUARE.

Potree.Group

Complete container with support for all potree features.
Some features require support for the following GL extensions
- EXT_frag_depth, WEBGL_depth_texture, OES_vertex_array_object

Potree.loadPointCloud

Method to load a point cloud database file
Potree.loadPointCloud(url, name, onLoad)

Potree.PointCloudMaterial

Material used by threejs to draw the point clouds, based on RawShaderMaterial
shape
- Defines the shape used to draw points
  - Potree.PointShape.SQUARE
  - Potree.PointShape.CIRCLE
  - Potree.PointShape.PARABOLOID
pointSizeType
- Defines how the point cloud points are sized, fixed mode keeps the same size, adaptive resizes points accordingly to their distance to the camera
- Possible values are
  - Potree.PointSizeType.FIXED
  - Potree.PointSizeType.ATTENUATED
  - Potree.PointSizeType.ADAPTIVE
pointColorType
- Defines how to color the drawn points
- Possible values are
  - Potree.PointColorType.RGB
  - Potree.PointColorType.COLOR
  - Potree.PointColorType.DEPTH
  - Potree.PointColorType.HEIGHT
  - Potree.PointColorType.INTENSITY
  - Potree.PointColorType.INTENSITY_GRADIENT
  - Potree.PointColorType.LOD
  - Potree.PointColorType.POINT_INDEX
  - Potree.PointColorType.CLASSIFICATION
  - Potree.PointColorType.RETURN_NUMBER
  - Potree.PointColorType.SOURCE
  - Potree.PointColorType.NORMAL
  - Potree.PointColorType.PHONG
  - Potree.PointColorType.RGB_HEIGHT
logarithmicDepthBuffer
- Set true to enable logarithmic depth buffer
weighted
- If true points are drawn as weighted splats
treeType
- Defines the type of point cloud tree being drawn by this material
- This should be automatically defined by the loader
  - Potree.TreeType.OCTREE
  - Potree.TreeType.KDTREE
Potree.PointCloudTree
- Base Object3D used to store and represent point cloud data.
- These objects are created by the loader