Choosing the Right Format

This section of the documentation provides recommendations for business use cases, depending on the type of data and the industry sector. It specifically advises on the most suitable formats for each application, offering users a guide to the best choices for projects of a specific nature, such as infrastructure, environmental analysis, and urban planning.

Data Format Selection Guide

Data from Reality Capture

flowchart TD
    A[Reality Capture]
    A --> B[Photogrammetry]
    A --> C[Lidar]
    A --> D[Geopositioned Spherical Photos]

    B --> E[Technical Objectives]
    B --> F[Visual Objectives]

    E --> G[Unstructured Point Clouds]
    F --> H[Textured Mesh OBJ]

    C --> I[Aerial]
    C --> J[Terrestrial]

    I --> K[Unstructured Point Cloud]
    J --> L[With 360° Photos]
    J --> M[Without 360° Photos]

    L --> N[Structured Point Cloud]
    M --> O[Unstructured Point Clouds]

    D --> P[360° Panorama]

Modeled Data

flowchart TD
    Q[Modeled Data]
    Q --> R[2D]
    Q --> S[3D]

    R --> T[With Metadata]
    R --> U[Without Metadata]

    T --> V[GIS]
    U --> W[CAD]

    S --> X[With Metadata]
    S --> Y[Without Metadata]

    X --> Z[BIM]
    Y --> AA[Non-Textured Mesh PLY]

Recommended Uses, Advantages, and Disadvantages

Textured Mesh

• Applications: Recommended for photogrammetry.
• Advantages: Aesthetic; the photo texture enhances technical information.
• Disadvantages: Longer data production time.

Structured Point Cloud

• Applications: Recommended for terrestrial laser scanners.
• Advantages: Combination with 360° spherical photos enables on-image measurements and immersive navigation similar to Street View.
• Disadvantages: Compared to meshes, point clouds have a “porous” appearance: gaps between vertices are visible.

Unstructured Point Cloud

• Applications: Suitable for photogrammetry and lidar, for technical rather than visual uses.
• Advantages: Smooth display and fast production.
• Disadvantages: Compared to meshes, point clouds have a “porous” appearance: gaps between vertices are visible. Not compatible with 360° spherical photos.

360° Photo

• Applications: Immersive navigation (like street view), structure inspection, virtual tours.
• Advantages: Enables immersive navigation with geolocation without necessarily being correlated to a structured point cloud.
• Disadvantages: Requires precise positioning and orientation information and the production of alignment files.

Building Information Modeling (BIM)

• Applications: 3D modeling of structures and digital mock-ups.
• Advantages: Metadata associated with objects.
• Disadvantages: No texture associated with objects.

Geographic Information System (GIS)

• Applications: Geographic data enriched with metadata.
• Advantages: Automatic 3D reprojection of 2D data. Metadata associated with objects.
• Disadvantages: Limited to points and vectors.

Computer-Aided Design (CAD)

• Applications: Suitable for 2D/3D vectors and contour lines.
• Advantages: Easily accessible format.
• Disadvantages: Requires prior data cleanup, which can be complex. No metadata associated with objects. No automatic 3D reprojection of 2D data.