ivankrps / pointcloud_web_viewer

Pointcloud Web Viewer

Pointcloud Web Viewer is a webpage based on Three.js to visualize point clouds. You can see it in action here: SRV Point Cloud Viewer

How to use it

Download the code and upload it to your server (using for example FileZilla). You can modify it as you wish to meet your requirements.

Then, you have to upload your pointclouds into the 'data' directory. Every pointcloud must be a folder with the following structure:

• data
  • pointcloud_1
    • pc.csv
    • info.csv
    • img.png
  • pointcloud_2
    • pc.csv
    • info.csv
    • img.png
  • ...

The pc.csv is the pointcloud itself and must have the following format:

x, y, z, r, g, b

One point for each line, separated by commas. r, g, b, are integers of the primary colors (red, green and blue) from 0 to 255.

Example:

-2.09482,0.305857,0.203584,219,225,199 -2.46393,0.879894,0.204576,238,243,203 -2.42189,0.920989,0.200718,254,254,232 ....

The info.csv file has 2 lines: title,This is the pointcloud title meta,This is the pointcloud description

The img.png must be a 600x500px image thumbnail.

Configuration

Please, before running the webpage, open index.php and configure the main parameters. You also need that your server take account the .htaccess file, so enable it in the configuration of your server. If you are using apache2, then execute the following command in your terminal:

a2enmod rewrite

Mouse controls

• Rotate: Hold down the left mouse button and move
• Zoom in/out: You have 2 options: a) Rotate mouse wheel b) Hold down the mouse wheel and move
• Pan: Hold down the right mouse button and move

Compatibility with Point Cloud Library (PCL)

If you are using the Point Cloud Library (PCL) for your 3D projects, and want to plot your .pcd files, you have to convert them to the format specified before. I've created a ROS node that takes a .pcd file (XYZ or XYZRGB) and convert it to .csv file that can be directly used by the Pointcloud Web Viewer (Source Code).

Problems to visualize it?

Three.js is a javascript library based on WebGL. WebGL is NOT suported by all browsers, you can check the compatibility of your hardware/software with webgl here:

WebGL Check Compatibility

If you don't see a spinning cube you can not use this software neither. To solve this problem, you can try the following:

• Install Google Chrome Web Browser
• If you can not see the cube using Google Chrome, type this in your address bar: chrome://flags/ and make sure you have enabled the following features:
  1. Flag 'Override software rendering list' IS ENABLED
  2. Flag 'Disable WebGL' IS DISABLED
• If you have changed some of these flags, restart Google Chrome and try again.
• If this does not solve the problem, make sure that your graphic card supports 3D acceleration.

What is wrong?

Many things, this is just a preliminary version of the code, any contribution is welcome!