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Upload, Process and Register Scans

Streamlined workflow for uploading, processing, registering and publishing scans.

Written by Stefanie Zerulla

This workflow is available for Blink, Orbis and Focus scans. You can use all scan types in one project.

NOTE: The Focus workflow is currently in beta state.

There are two options for uploading scans to Sphere XG and starting the workflow, i.e. pre-register and upload via Stream or upload manually.

The 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. You can still discard the 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.

Starting from SCENE 2025.2, projects registered in SCENE will be displayed as registered in Sphere XG and vice versa.

Pre-registration and Upload to Sphere XG via Stream

See:

After pre-registering the scans in Stream and uploading them to Sphere XG, they will be processed and registered automatically.

Manual Upload to Sphere XG

You can also upload scans manually as follows:

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

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

3. If you create a new project, upload scans as explained under Bring Your Data into the Cloud, section Bring your Data into the Cloud.

OR

3. If you want to import data into an existing project, choose one of the following options to import scans:

  • Click the Draft breadcrumb at the top of the viewer to open the project draft page and click the icon.

  • Click the Edit scans button in the project structure view to open the project draft page and click the icon .

  • Click the Import button in the project structure view and click the Scans tile.

Then select the scans from the file system. The following page will be displayed

4. Optional: Add more data to the project by clicking into the Added data field.

5. Select the Workflow type.

  • Automatic to publish the project automatically.

  • Manual review, if you want to review the project before publishing.

6. Select the Publishing options, see Publishing Options below.

7. Click Import.

The automatic workflow will start.

The workflow has the following steps:

  • Uploading: 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.

  • Publish: If you have marked checkbox Generate point cloud, all scan point clouds will be merged into a project point cloud. If all previous steps have finished successfully and you have selected the Automatic workflow type, the project will be published automatically and you can access it in the Sphere XG Viewer, see below. However, you can still change and re-publish the registration. If you have selected the Manual review workflow type, you will be prompted to check the registration result in the Registration - Inspect view before publishing. In this view, you can also edit the registration.

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

If the registration finishes successfully, you will get a notification in Sphere XG and via email.

Publishing Options

The following settings are available for Blink, Orbis and Focus scans:

Generate point cloud

If you enable this switch, all scans will be merged into a point cloud before publishing.
Otherwise, only the overview map with registered scans and 360° photos will be published. Note that 3D data will not be available.

Reflection filter (beta)

If you enable this switch, reflections caused by reflective surfaces will be filtered out.
This may increase processing time. It is recommended to disable the filter if there are no reflective surfaces. Note that this feature is still in beta state.

For the Orbis scanner, the following additional processing options are available:

Capture environment

Select a processing type with information about the environment where the scan was made. This can aid the processing quality.

  • Confined: An environment where the system will be exposed to surfaces at a maximum 1.5m from the scanners trajectory. To be used in a tight indoor environment or if temporarily moving through a tight space.

  • Forest: Dense forest environment where irregular features occur on all 6 sides of the scanner (left, right, top, bottom, front, back). The start and finish position are the same.

  • Indoor: Indoor environments where features are usually planar on all sides of the sensor and maximum range rarely exceeds 30m.

  • Open Loop: Various environment where the start and finish positions are not the same. To be used in linear scans where capture does not exceed 20 - 25 minutes.

  • Standard: The default setting for a feature-rich environment. Feature-rich environments are those where unique objects/ surfaces surround the system on 5 sides (front, back, left, right, bottom). These objects/surfaces should be at maximum 40m from the system.

  • Tunnel: A feature-poor environment where the system is surrounded by irregular surfaces on 4 sides (left, right, top, bottom). These surfaces should be at maximum 25m from the system.

  • UAV: Airborne missions taken by a drone where features are no more than 40m from the sensor. Bounding box has been modified to remove UAV system from the processing data. This setting removes the drone rotor blades from the capture. Currently, UAV is not possible with Orbis, you can only use ZEB Horizon without Vision.

  • Vehicle: Environment where the vehicle is moving at no more than 30 mph (48 km/h). The start and finish positions should be approximately in the same place (some 2-3m). Features vary in distance from the trajectory.

Colorization

If you activate this switch, the camera photos that are available in the scan are evaluated and used to colorize the mobile data.

Remove transient points

If you activate this switch, moving objects will be removed from the point cloud.

Detect and exclude outliers

If you activate this switch, outlying data points will be removed from the point cloud with the improved outlier filter. Outlying points may be caused by rain or dust or by partial reflections from edges.

Noise reduction

If you activate this switch, the point cloud is improved by reducing surface irregularity/noise and removing outlying data points.

Adjust the Registration

If the registration fails, the workflow screen will display an error message and you will also be notified via email. You can then adjust the registration manually, see Edit the Registration of Scans.

Make Changes on the Project Draft Page

If you are not satisfied with the registration result, you can go back to the project draft page by clicking Draft in the breadcrumbs at the top left of the screen.

The changes that you make on the project draft page or if you edit a registration only affect the project draft. The project itself remains unchanged until you publish the changes.

On this page, you can also add scans by clicking the Add data icon . In addition, you can delete scans that may cause problems by marking the scan's checkbox and clicking Remove scans. You can also add scans by clicking the Import data button in the project structure view.

Click the icon on the project draft page to open the Registration - Inspect page. See Inspect the Registration of Scans. From this page, you can open the Registration - Edit page.

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

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