If you have a project site that takes more than 20 minutes to capture, then it means you need to take more than 1 scan to capture the site. When capturing additional parts of the site make sure to have some overlap between Captures in order for alignment and registration to be successful. Aligning multiple scans together is straightforward with the right software.  

Note: See this article on how to Export Point Clouds from CupixVista

Software for Alignment and Registration

CupixVista point clouds are considered "Unstructured" point clouds and therefore 3d scanning software specializing in unstructured point clouds is required for aligning and registering the point clouds. Software for aligning CupixVista scans include the following:

CloudCompare Scan to Scan Alignment

Here's a workflow in CloudCompare.

1. Get Point Clouds from CupixVista
2. Import Point Clouds from CupixVista
3. Rough Align the Point Clouds
4. Fine Register (Align) the Point Clouds
5. Merge the Aligned Point Clouds
6. Export the Merged Point Cloud 

Get Point Clouds from Cupix Vista

Here are 4 point clouds which we'll be aligning in this example. See this article on how to Exporting Point Cloud from CupixVista.  Export the point clouds as e57 format.

Import Point Clouds

Drag the e57 files into CloudCompare to load them or use File>Open.  

Rough Aligning Point Clouds

Toggle the Top View and roughly manually align the point clouds using Edit>Translate/Rotate with each selected point cloud.  

1. Perform the rough manual alignment from the Top View First by clicking on the Top View icon. 

2. Confirm elevations are correct by clicking on the Side View Icon and manually adjust elevation alignment if necessary.

Fine Register (Align) the Point Clouds

1. Use Fine Registration for pairs of point clouds using Tools>Registration>Fine Registration (ICP).  Make sure to do the following to get a good registration.
   • Reduce Final overlap to 10%
   • Enable adjust scale 

2. Keep a consistent point cloud reference (yellow shaded). In the example below, the front of the house stays as the reference (yellow shaded).  

Merge the Aligned Point Clouds

We can combine the 4 point clouds into a single point cloud using Edit>Merge.

To revert the color back to RGB you can change the Colors back to RGB. 

Export the Merged Point Cloud

Save the point cloud as an e57 using File>Save

Residential Multiple Scan Alignment Workflow (FULL VIDEO)

Watch the full video here. 

Industrial Plant Scan Alignment Workflow (FULL VIDEO)

Watch the full video here.