Understanding the UI and Settings

Project Tab

The Project Tab is the default startup page when you open SiteMaker on your desktop.

• New Project: Click to create a new SiteMaker processing project

• Recent Projects: Choose between recent projects

• Open Project: Open existing SiteMaker project on the desktop (.ini file)

• Change Project Settings: Change the current project’s dataset locations or configuration files

A step-by-step guide is available here.

Datasets Tab

The Datasets tab provides you with an overview of your project’s processing status.

Here you can:

• View each dataset’s ID, Name, Quality map for the Recorded dataset, and your data’s processing Status.

• Select one or more datasets in the project, and start the data processing on selected data.

After opening or creating a project, SiteMaker switches to the Datasets tab. See Post-Processing using SiteMaker and Web Processing for your next steps.

Dataset Information

The dataset list in the Datasets tab summarizes information for each Dataset. From here, you can also:

• Open any of the dataset logs ( ).

• Browse the dataset files ( ).

• Open the quality map in the image viewer by clicking the dataset's thumbnail.

Filtering by Processing Status

You can filter datasets by their processing status:

1. From the Datasets tab, click the Filter button at the top left of the tab to open a checkbox list to the left of the datasets list.

2. Select or filter for the datasets using the checkboxes. They have three possible states to define the processing status:

   1. : This processing step must be completed

   2. : This processing step must be absent

   3. : This processing step is irrelevant (both present and absent are accepted)

Settings Tab

The Settings tab allows you to adjust the settings used for processing. If no changes are made, a default configuration will be used.

Point Cloud Settings

Point cloud settings impact the quality of your project. Learn more about the different kinds of point cloud settings here.

The following Point cloud file formats are supported by NavVis:

LAS, PTS, XYZ, PLY, E57

• When processing in a terminal, the point cloud data generated using NavVis System Software is written by default in the PLY format.

• When processing with NavVis SiteMaker, select the format from the UI. The default format in SiteMaker is .e57.

Both formats are supported by a variety of tools and can store XYZ coordinates, Normals, and color information. Users can convert point clouds using the tool nv_pcp.

Select the following options when working with Point clouds.

1. In NavVis SiteMaker, click the Settings tab.

2. From the Point Cloud section, color point clouds by selecting Colorize point clouds. To remove the color from point clouds, deselect this option.

Setting the Point cloud Resolution

The default point cloud resolution is 1cm. This is a good trade-off between memory efficiency and processing speed on the one hand, and high point cloud resolution on the other.

1. In NavVis SiteMaker, click the Settings tab.

2. From the Resolution field, use the up or down arrow buttons to increase or decrease the point cloud resolution.

   

Setting the Filtering Mode

The point cloud mode of the point clouds generated during post-processing defaults to Sharp-Edges.

1. In NavVis SiteMaker, click the Settings tab.

2. Under the Point Cloud section, select a point cloud mode from the Filtering mode drop-down list.

   

Note: The point cloud mode of the point clouds generated during post-processing defaults to Sharp-Edges.

1. In NavVis SiteMaker, click the Settings tab.

2. Under the Point Cloud section, select a point cloud mode from the Filtering mode drop-down list.

Setting the Point cloud Format

The default point cloud format in SiteMaker is .e57.

1. In NavVis SiteMaker, click the Settings tab.

2. Under the Point Cloud section, you can choose one of the other supported formats from the Format drop-down menu.

   

Post-Processing Settings

The following settings can be adapted for post-processing:

• Reprocess Dataset and overwrite existing data: Allows you to ignore prior processing results and overwrites all previous data of datasets selected.

• Control Points: Add a control point file in .txt or .csv format.

• Point Cloud: Allows adapting coloring, filtering mode, preset, resolution, and format of the point cloud.  

• Panoramic images: Allows to disable panorama generation, floor-filling, or select a custom operator mask.  

• Advanced Settings: custom arguments for processing. For details please check Custom Arguments

Web-Processing Settings

For web-processing, the number of CPU threads used can be adapted. A default Number of Threads is already automatically set with the same count of your CPU threads.

Activity Log Tab

You will automatically be redirected to the Activity Log tab, once you start processing.

All background processing events will be logged within this view. When one or more datasets have been processed successfully, the dataset name listed on the left Progress bar will turn green. The dataset name will be colored in red if processing fails. If the dataset was processed but errors remain, it will appear in yellow.