Viewer

The embedded viewer displays point clouds. It can either show the live point cloud or replay a recording. The point cloud can be viewed freely from different angles and its appearance can be customized with different color schemes, which can be coded according to distance, intensity or other parameters. Furthermore, the viewer allows the convenient starting and stopping of point cloud recordings, which are saved on the host computer.

This video shows some configuration possibilites of the viewer and how to record pointclouds.

This video was recorded with the firmware 1.14.0.

Layout

1) Performance Statistics

Metric	Description
Data Rate	Amount of data received per second in megabytes.
Render Delay	Difference between current device time and start of frame timestamp, corrected by the estimated transmission delay.
Frame Rate	Amount of frames created by the scanner per second.
Display Rate	Amount of frames displayed per second.

2) Currently selected color map

The color map on the left shows the color transitions in the currently selected color map. The numbers on the top and on the bottom next to the color map can be edited in order to modify the range of values covered by the color map. Values that are below the selected value range will be shown in the same color as the minimum value color. The same principle applies for values, which are above the selected value range.

3) Fullscreen button

Toggle fullscreen mode, exit by pressing the ESC key or clicking the button again.

4) Current grid cell size

The edge length of one grid cell in meters.

5) Settings panel button

Toggle the settings panel. The settings are described below: Settings

6) 2D button

Toggle the 2D view. The 2D view projects the 3D point cloud onto a plane as viewed from the Cube’s position. Here, it is only possible to zoom in and out of the projection plane and to shift the point cloud laterally. Note that in the 2D view, all return points have the same size. In the 3D view, the points are scaled according to the distance from the point of view (camera position). Click again to return to the 3D view.

7) LIVE

Displays whether the point cloud is acquired live or whether a recording is replayed. If the viewer is replaying a recording, the name of the recording is displayed here.

8) Record and replay button

Records a point cloud and saves it on the client computer. The data will be saved in the Blickfeld format (.bfpc). It is possible to replay the recording in the viewer itself using the replay button. Alternatively, the data can be opened via the BSL or converted to other point cloud formats such as the vtu-format using the Blickfeld recorder.

Settings

Color Source

The color source setting controls which data field is used for the color coding of the data points.

Option	Description
Distance	Distance to origin (Default)
X	Position on x axis
Y	Position on y axis
Z	Position on z axis
Intensity	Intensity of the reflected laser light
Ambient	Ambient near-infrared light in the measurement direction

The range of values covered by the color map is shown on the left side of the viewer. The values can also be changed there. When changing the color source, the range will automatically be set based on the current point cloud.

Color Map

This setting controls which color map is applied. Available Color Maps:

Blickfeld
Binary
Rainbow
Cool to Warm
Blackbody
Grayscale
Blue/Red Step

Point Scale

This setting controls the size of the points displayed in the point cloud. In the 3D view, the points are scaled additionally depending on the distance to the camera. In the 2D view, the points are all scaled to the same size.

Example for point size 3:

Example for point size 1:

Scan Pattern

Changes the scan pattern even during operation. Choose between several pre-defined scan patterns or use the configuration tab to create a new one.

Grid Size

Sets the size of one grid cell in meters.

Grid cell size 1 m:

Grid cell size 3 m: