Skip to main content
All CollectionsSphere XGSphere XG Premium Features & Add-OnsPoint Cloud & 3D Model Management
How to Align Point Cloud Models to a Sheet on the Sphere XG Viewer
How to Align Point Cloud Models to a Sheet on the Sphere XG Viewer

Learn more about how to manually align Point Clouds after importing to your Sphere XG project in the viewer.

Anna-Azize Adami avatar
Written by Anna-Azize Adami
Updated this week

Align Point Cloud Models to a Sheet on the Sphere XG Viewer

After importing one or more point clouds, you can align the point cloud or point clouds to the sheet or grid manually. If you have more than one point cloud, you must align them to the sheet or grid one by one.

In the project structure view, unaligned point clouds are marked by an exclamation mark:

If the point clouds are already pre-aligned, for example if they were captured with the FARO Orbis scanner pre-aligned in Stream, you do not need this step. Instead, you can go directly to the registration [article coming soon].

For more information on Stream and the Orbis scanner, see the Stream User Manual and the Orbis Mobile Scanner and Datalogger User Manual.

  1. Click the three-dots icon of the point cloud to open the context menu.

  2. Select menu entry Align to Sheet.
    The alignment tool is displayed.

You can also open the alignment tool from the Cloud Activity popup after the import and processing procedure is finished.

Alignment Toolbar

  • Reset Scale: If you click Reset Scale, you can "resize" the point cloud to fit it to the sheet, see also section Reset the Scale of the Point Cloud. In addition, you can only use the other buttons of this toolbar if button Reset Scale is active. If the button is active, it turns blue.

  • Re-center Point Cloud on Sheet: Re-centers the position of the point cloud on the sheet.

  • Change Up Axis of Point Cloud: Rotates the point cloud around the x-axis in 90° steps. This results in both, the y-axis and z-axis moving at the same time.


Translate (Move) the Point Cloud

  1. Click to insert an anchor point into the point cloud or select an existing one.

  2. Hover the mouse pointer over the anchor point until the mouse pointer changes to a translation pointer.

  3. Click and hold the mouse key, then move the point cloud.


Rotate the Point Cloud

  1. Click to insert an anchor point into the point cloud or select an existing one.

  2. Hover the mouse pointer anywhere on the point cloud outside the anchor point until the mouse pointer changes to a rotation pointer.


  3. Click and hold the mouse key, then rotate the point cloud.


Delete an Anchor Point

Right-click an anchor point to delete it. Then you can reset the anchor point at the correct position.


Reset the Scale of the Point Cloud

If you have already set the scale of the sheet, resetting and subsequently changing the scale here, will overwrite the previous scaling.

IMPORTANT

You cannot undo this procedure.

Proceed as follows if you want to change the scaling of the sheet:

  1. Click to insert a second anchor point.

  2. Click icon Reset Scale in the alignment toolbar.
    The icon turns blue, indicating that you can now reset the scale. If a scale was set already, you are asked if you want to enable resetting the scale.

  3. Click and hold one anchor point and resize the point cloud to match the sheet.
    The mouse pointer changes to a resizing pointer.

Reset Scale icon

Resizing does not change the point cloud coordinate system or geolocation but only fits the point cloud to the sheet or grid.

You can resize and rotate the point cloud at the same time. If you only want to resize the point cloud, make sure to set two parallel anchor points.


Define the Point Cloud Elevation

  1. Click Next on the upper right side of the screen to go the elevation adjustment.

  2. Click and hold anywhere in the view and rotate it to a side, front or back view, i.e., any view that provides a good sight at height differences between the floor plan(sheet) and the point cloud.

  3. Click and hold any point on the green arrow and then drag to adjust the point cloud elevation.
    You can also click anywhere in the point cloud. Then, the sheet will be moved to this position.

Define point cloud elevation menu


Confirm Alignment

If you want to make more changes to the point cloud alignment or the point cloud elevation, click the Back button in the top right corner of the screen.

When you are satisfied with the point cloud alignment and elevation, click the Confirm Alignment button in the top right corner of the screen.

You are redirected to the Sphere XG Viewer.


Check Alignment and Elevation

  1. Click icon in the view toolbar on the lower left side of the point cloud to go to the 3D view.

  2. Rotate and drag the point cloud to check whether the alignment and elevation compared to the sheet are satisfactory.

Otherwise, you can repeat the alignment as described above.


If you want to read this article in a different language currently not available in this Help Center, please refer to the Sphere XG User Manual under .

Did this answer your question?