Import e57 Laser Scans, Points and Images

[LRP]

I am trying to import Laser Scans in e57 format exported from Leica Cyclone but I cannot get the points and panoramas imported together. If I import as Laser Scans I only get panoramas. If I import as points, I only get the point cloud. I want to use the panoramas to texture a mesh, but when imported as laser scans, the cameras are listed as not aligned, though they are displayed in their proper alligned positions as exported from Cyclone.

[LRP]

Is having e57 import with both images and points not possible in v1.8.4? I see there is some documentation on this topic for the v2.0 release?

[Kiesel]

Hello ForensicDJS,

I have just tried this with version 2.0 beta, because we only have the pointcloud of one object and none additional photos.

While the import of the e57-format pointcloud was easy, the import of the panoramas out of the e57 pointcloud was not. As solution we have exported the panoramas from Leica Cyclone and imported them with there coordinates in Metashape. Before the import the panoramas were developed out of the exported EXR-files to TIFF. We need to align the panoramas to be able to generate an orthomosaic in Metashape and not all panoramas could be aligned (only 22 of 25). For the orthomosaic a lot of masking (out the scaffold) was necessary, because when you work with panoramas every point is theoretical seen from every panorama, so the function filter photos by point shows every time all panoramas.

We have exported the DEM, generated out of the pointcloud alone, and the orthomosaic and used both in Autodesk Civil 3D. The quality of the orthomosaic is only good enough in the near of every scan station and decreases fast with higher distance from the scanstation because of the lower and lower intersection angle to the ground. So for a ground orthomosaic and not a facade it is really not recommend. Another issue are the errors of the Leica RTC360 panoramas near the tubes of the scaffolding.


Hope this helps,

Kiesel