What is a Point Cloud?
A point cloud is a collection of data points in space that represent the external surface of an object or environment. Point clouds are used across 3D scanning and mapping workflows, and are the foundation of most reality capture projects.
In NavVis IVION, you can view and work with point clouds directly: pan and orbit the scene, clean up noise, crop to the area you need, and download the data in formats like .e57 or .ply. Point clouds processed with NavVis software achieve a minimum detail of 5 mm.
Importing point clouds into NavVis IVION
When you import a point cloud into NavVis IVION, you'll be working with whatever format your scanner or processing pipeline produced. NavVis IVION supports the following formats for import:
E57 (.e57)
LAS / LAZ (.las / .laz)
XML (.xml) — usually required alongside the point cloud
PTS (.pts)
PLY (.ply)
PTX (.ptx)
Note: For other proprietary scanner formats not listed above, convert to E57 (or IFC for models) using vendor or third-party tools before importing.
Choosing the right format when exporting
When you export from NavVis IVION, the format you pick should match the software or workflow you're handing the data off to. Use the guide below to decide.
Workflow / Usecase | Recommended Format | Why |
|---|---|---|
Autodesk software (ReCap, Revit, AutoCAD, Navisworks) | RCS (.rcs) | Skips the indexing step you'd otherwise have to do in ReCap. |
Bentley software (MicroStation, Pointools) | POD (.pod) | Bentley's native format. If POD export isn't available for your dataset, export E57 and convert on the Bentley side. |
Survey or GIS workflows | LAS (.las) | Current industry standard for survey and GIS. |
Other 3D tools, or you're not sure | E57 (.e57) | Open and vendor-neutral. Accepted by nearly every 3D application. It can include panoramas if your dataset has them. |
General 3D or visualization pipelines | PLY (.ply) | Compact and well supported across 3D modeling and visualization tools. |
3D overlay or visualization downstream | XVL (XV2) | Purpose-built for overlay and visualization workflows. |
Crop & Download tool lets you export exactly the part of the dataset you need from NavVis IVION, in a format that fits your target software.
Additionally, IVION Processing enables you to obtain complete processed artifacts, such as E57 and PLY point clouds, panoramic images, dataset archives (.nvd), and logs of the processing activities.