--- title: "More Detailed Point Cloud Options" slug: "detailed-point-cloud-options" description: "Enhance your viewing experience with the Hide Walls and Ceilings feature, allowing unobstructed views of interiors by concealing unseen surfaces." tags: ["Automatic Activation", "Ceiling Visibility", "Hide Walls", "Orthographic appearance", "Perspective appearance", "Point Cloud Settings", "Point Cloud Visualization", "Quality Settings"] updated: 2026-05-12T16:19:08Z published: 2026-05-12T16:19:08Z canonical: "knowledge.navvis.com/detailed-point-cloud-options" --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://knowledge.navvis.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # More Detailed Point Cloud Options ### Hide wall and Ceilings The Hide Walls and Ceilings feature hides surfaces when they are viewed from the side that was not captured during scanning. For example, if a wall was scanned from only one side, the opposite side will not be displayed when this mode is enabled. The same behavior applies to ceilings. For example, top-floor ceilings are generally scanned from below. When viewing the site from above with this feature enabled, those ceilings will not be visible, allowing a clear view into the interior. In standard viewing mode, the surface that appears to serve as a ceiling is usually the ceiling structure that faces the inside. Users have the option to either conceal or reveal the building's walls and ceilings, which provides a more unobstructed view of the interior. ### Automatic Activation - If **Automatic activation** is enabled, all Datasets in a Site are automatically displayed in Point cloud mode. - If **Automatic activation** is disabled you can see point clouds in a site by changing the view, refer to [Setting views](/v1/docs/exploring-a-site-3). ## Quality Point cloud Options #### Detailed Quality Settings ![Settings panel displaying quality options for range, detail, and point count adjustments.](https://cdn.document360.io/bf174766-fa1a-4fe1-a4d7-b1db1e7cb996/Images/Documentation/Qualitypoint cloude options(1).PNG) - **Range (m):** Controls the maximum distance (from the camera perspective) at which points are still displayed. - **Level of detail:** Controls the size and resolution at which the points are rendered. The minimum resolution is 5 mm. - **Point count target (M):** Controls how many points are shown (in millions). Beyond that number no more points are rendered. This setting strongly influences performance. - **Minimum node size (px):**Show points only if they are part of a node larger than indicated (in pixels on the screen, e.g. 10 x 10). A node is a group of points. A higher minimum node size means points in smaller nodes are ignored. To see the information about the quality pre-sets refer to [Point Cloud Pre-set Options for Quality](/v1/docs/setting-point-cloud-options#quality-preset-options) ## Perspective Appearance Point cloud Options #### Detailed Perspective Appearance Settings ![Settings panel displaying options for opacity, brightness, and point size adjustments.](https://cdn.document360.io/bf174766-fa1a-4fe1-a4d7-b1db1e7cb996/Images/Documentation/Enhaunce.PNG) - **Opacity:** Render points transparently (low opacity) vs. opaque (high). - **Brightness:** Controls how much "light" points give off. Only available when Opacity is different from 1. - **Color style:**Choose how the point clouds are colored. - **Single color:** Uses the dataset color as set in Alignment mode. This setting will colorize the whole point cloud into a single color, showing a better visualization of the depth and edges of the point cloud. - **Full color:** Shows colored point clouds. Point clouds are colored during post-processing using color information from images. - **Elevation:**Points are rendered in rainbow colors corresponding to their height value. At the Min height (m), points are blue, and at the Max height (m), points are red. - **Normals:** Points are colored based on direction of their Normals. - **Intensity:**Points are rendered based on the intensity of the reflected laser. - **Intensity gradient:**Points are colored on a blue to red gradient based on the intensity of the reflected laser. - **Point size mode:**Choose how point size is determined. - **Fixed:** All points have the same size, as controlled by the Point size setting. - **Attenuated:** Takes distance of point from camera into account. - **Adaptive:** Takes distance from camera and point cloud resolution into account. - **Point size:** Point diameter. - **Point shape:**Choose whether to render the points as squares or as circles. - **Enhance edges:**Adds a black border to the points. ## Orthographic Appearance Point cloud Options #### Detailed Orthographic Appearance Settings ![](https://cdn.document360.io/bf174766-fa1a-4fe1-a4d7-b1db1e7cb996/Images/Documentation/image-1771605706516.png) The Orthographic appearance setting is exclusively accessible in Dataset alignment, Site model, and Point cloud cleaning modes. - **Opacity:** Render points transparently (low opacity) vs. opaque (high). - **Color style:**Choose how the point clouds are colored. - **Single color:** Uses the dataset color as set in Alignment mode. This setting will colorize the whole point cloud into a single color, showing a better visualization of the depth and edges of the point cloud. - **Full color:** Shows colored point clouds. Point clouds are colored during post-processing using color information from images. - **Elevation:**Points are rendered in rainbow colors corresponding to their height value. At the Min height (m), points are blue, and at the Max height (m), points are red. - **Normals:** Points are colored based on direction of their Normals. - **Intensity:**Points are rendered based on the intensity of the reflected laser. - **Intensity gradient:**Points are colored on a blue to red gradient based on the intensity of the reflected laser. - **Point size:** Point diameter. - **Point shape:**Choose whether to render the points as squares or as circles. - **Normals filitering**: Selects or removes points based on the orientation of their surface normal vectors to retain only surfaces with desired geometric characteristics. #### Detailed Perspective Appearance Settings To see the information about the quality pre-sets refer to [Point Cloud Pre-set Options for Perspective appearance](/v1/docs/setting-point-cloud-options#perspective-preset-options) --- ### FAQ #### How does the Hide Walls and Ceilings feature enhance the viewing experience? The Hide Walls and Ceilings feature allows users to hide surfaces that are not visible from the scanned perspective, providing a clearer view of the interior. #### What happens to the visibility of ceilings when using the Hide Walls and Ceilings feature? Ceilings that are scanned from below will not be visible when viewing from above with the Hide Walls and Ceilings feature enabled. #### What options do users have for viewing walls and ceilings in the software? Users can choose to either conceal or reveal walls and ceilings to achieve a more unobstructed view of the interior. #### What is the effect of disabling Automatic activation on point cloud visibility? If Automatic activation is disabled, users must manually change the view to see point clouds in a site. #### Can the point size in the visualization be adjusted based on distance? Yes, the point size can be adjusted using the Attenuated or Adaptive modes, which consider the distance from the camera. A dataset is a piece of a site, the result of a continuous recording with a NavVis mapping device or the result of an imported point cloud. Datasets can contain panoramic images and point clouds. Site refers to a complex of one or more buildings displayed in a NavVis IVION instance. For example, the Munich Airport would be one site. An instance can contain multiple sites. Each site consists of one or more datasets. A three-dimensional representation of an environment, made up of many points. A point is defined by x, y and z coordinates, and it may or may not contain RGB, an intensity value, and normals. Normals are perpendicular to the tangent plane line at a particular point on the surface. They yield especially useful information about a curved surface's characteristics but conversely can tell us much about the planarity of a flat or angular surface also. Normals can tell us the rate of change of curvature when a surface has an angular departure and tell us just how perfectly flat something is.