Request: Define orientation of the point cloud tool selection box

#1

Use case: I’m using some point cloud scans of buildings in VR Sketch and the orientation of their walls is about 20 degrees off the default red axis. With the point cloud tool, I’d like to “hide” the points of certain walls, or cut sections at specific angles. Because the point cloud tool selection box is always oriented to the global axes within the program, this becomes prohibitively difficult.

It’d be great to have a menu option to “set orientation of selection box” just for the point cloud tool. An easier to implement solution might be to have the selection box orient itself to the user-defined axis, which will usually be set parallel to building walls anyway.

I just thought of something else: An option to “unhide” specific points in the cloud. You could click that menu option, then VR Sketch would display only the hidden points, then you could use a selection box to pick the ones you want to bring back into the model. This would be very useful for working with large clouds where you want different things hidden at different times. Having to “unhide all” and then re-hide everything you didn’t want just to, say, get a single tree back, is a bit cumbersome.

Thanks as always. Loving VR Sketch more every day.

#2

Hi! Thanks for the suggestions.

I think it would make sense to follow the current axes for the “hide” box. Most things in Sketchup and in VR Sketch follow these axes already. I’ll investigate if there are any big issues with the implementation.

“Unhide” would make sense, indeed. Maybe the simplest would be a menu option that inverts which points are hidden and which points are visible. To get back a specific tree, you invert the visibility, then you hide the tree again, and you invert the visibility again. Either that, or are you describe, an “unhide mode” in which you draw boxes to make points visible again… though I’m not quite sure how we should display the two kinds of points, “visible” versus “hidden but still visible right now because you can’t pick them without seeing them”.

#3

Hello! You improved my idea greatly with the “invert” button for point clouds. That’s basically what I was thinking, but better. I could see many additional uses for an invert option, like viewing a “slice” of something. And if no points were hidden, the “invert” button would just hide the entire cloud - a pretty convenient way to toggle it on and off.

#4

Keeping you updated: I started working on it, but I’ve got one week of holidays now. I should have some prototype ready during the following week.

1 Like
#5

Sorry for the delay! It seems to work now. I can give you a preview version; do you need the Oculus Quest version (for the standalone Quest headset), or the PC VR version (for all PC-driven headsets, including Quest-with-the-Link-cable)?

#6

Hi! Thanks so much for working on this. I’d be happy to try the PCVR version.

#7

Here you are. It should follow the currently-defined axes, and have an “invert points” menu entry. The zero point size and the greater-than-zero point size are implemented with different code, so maybe try to check them both (like I did) with your point cloud. Thanks :slight_smile:

https://vrsketch.eu/download/baroquesoftware_vrsketch_v16-pointcloud-2.rbz

#8

Just did a first test and it works great. No issues with any point size. These are super useful little features and I appreciate you implementing them!

#9

Thanks for the feedback!