What are "point normals" in a tie point cloud?

[davpaez]

When I export the tie point cloud using:

File -> Export --> Export points...

and choosing the "XYZ Point Cloud (*.txt)" option, the dialog shows the posibility to export point normals.

Can anyone please explain to me what those normals mean?

I've noticed from the exported files that they are indeed normal vectors, but I doubt they are the normal vector of the surface located at each point, since at this stage, I haven't created a mesh so I don't know how could a surface normal be calculated.

I'm using Photoscan 1.4.0

Thank you!

[Alexey Pasumansky]

Hello devpaez,

The normals for the sparse cloud points are calculated according to the average direction of the cameras that have the given tie point projection on the corresponding image.

[davpaez]

Thank you for your response, Alexey
Cheers!