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Process and Register Blink Scans

For Blink scans Sphere XG provides a streamlined workflow for uploading, processing, registering and publishing scans.

Stefanie Zerulla avatar
Written by Stefanie Zerulla
Updated over 3 weeks ago

After capturing Blink scans and pre-registering them with the Stream app, you can upload them into Sphere XG.

The better the pre-registration in Stream, the better your registration results will turn out, but you can also edit and improve the registration result manually in Sphere XG.

1. On the Sphere XG Dashboard, go to the Projects page.

2. Select an existing project or create a new one.

3. On the Overview tab of the Project page, click the Manage Data button.

A page is opened on which you can add Blink raw data to a new project or to an already existing project.

NOTE: All changes during upload, processing and registration are made on a draft project. Scans and changes are not available in the Sphere XG Viewer until they are published, i.e. you can still discard all changes you have made before publishing. In other words, if you were adding changes to an existing project, and then discard them, these changes will not be available in the Sphere XG Viewer.

Prepare and Start the Blink Workflow

You can:

  • Sync your Blink scans directly from Stream, see our Blink User Manual.

  • Drag a folder containing Blink scans onto the page if the scans are available on a USB stick or in a directory on your computer.

A page will be displayed on which you can make various settings for the Blink workflow.

To merge all scans into a point cloud before publishing, mark checkbox Generate point cloud.

To filter out reflections caused by reflective surfaces, mark checkbox Apply reflection filter (beta). Note that processing takes longer and that this feature is still in beta state.

You can delete folders by clicking the icon.

4. Click Import.

The automatic workflow will start.

  • Upload: The scans will be uploaded to the cloud.

  • Process: The scans will be processed, i.e. scan point clouds will be created and various other settings regarding the offset, colorization and filtering will be made.

  • Register: The scan point clouds will be registered, i.e. the pre-registration results will be refined and improved. If you have marked checkbox Generate point cloud, all scan point clouds will be merged into a project point cloud.

  • Publish: If all previous steps have finished successfully, the scan point clouds will be published automatically. However, you can still inspect and edit the registration result manually.

During each workflow step, the progress and status are displayed, see figure above.

To view the project in the Sphere XG Viewer, click View Project.

Edit the Project Draft on the Manage Data Page

All changes that you make on the Manage Data page only affect the project draft. The project itself remains unchanged until you publish the changes.

To add scans to an existing project, go back to the Manage Data page and click the icon.

To delete a scan from a project:

  1. Mark the checkbox of the scan you want to delete.

  2. Click Remove Scans.

  3. Confirm the deletion.

Note that you cannot undo a deletion once it is confirmed.

For more detailed information, see our Sphere XG User Manual.

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