I will have to model cars, airplanes, copters, etc very shortly using a Trimble GX 200. Polyworks seems to be a strong leader in converting point cloud into NURBS. I am waiting for a quote but I suspect the product is expansive (considering the fact that I have recently invested many thousands $$$ in RealWorks). However, I have seen offers on the net for Polyworks under a OEM shape that I am not familiar with. These offers are below 100$. If anyone has gone that path, I would be interested to know where is the catch and what are the drawbacks. Thanks
Great topic - we use PolyWorks hard core everyday for both close range and long range scan modeling and analysis. It's a 'toolkit' for us - meaning its loaded with capabilities and you use what you need for different projects.
If anyone wants to hear/see more about its portion of our modeling/analysis workflow, check our website and/or feel free to ask questions.
Below are links to additional resources that you may want to review also:
We also have a wide variety of graphical application case studies that highlight different projects using the different softwares at: http://www.dirdim.com/port_projects.htm
We use, sell, support, and train the three major point cloud processing softwares: PolyWorks, Geomagic, and Rapidform.
We are very technical users of all three. They each have a strong component of our various workflows depending on the nature of the project. I would be happy to talk to you about the specific strengths of each.
Thanks Michael! As for the basic comparison it says nothing to me. I will try to clarify my previous post a bit. I've tried to use both of them Geomagic and Polyworks. Every time I hear from other people that Polyworks is something huge and inconceivable, it's got so powefull capabilities so that no other software and so on. As for Geomagic they say that it's too simple and plane. But I can't understand why! When I compare their features I can't see any preference of PW (maybe ability to process large point data sets only). When I try to do the same tasks in PW and in Geomagic, in PW it takes much more time (aspecially if I use an unorganized pointcloud data got from an other source) and I don't feel it handy at all. So can anyone explane in details why PW is so good, first of all for high-precision applications=)
Maxim - if you can be more specific on what you are trying to do, I am quite sure I can help explain better the differences between PolyWorks and Geomagic and how they each specialize differently. It's hard to explain without knowing what you are trying to do, what your applications are, what type of modeling projects, features, components, etc. that you are scanning, or ultimately what your final output formats need to be.
Both are very good at a common set of point processing & polygonizing functions but they differ in strengths from there depending on what you need to do. If you can describe your workflow and needs, I can help you further.
I have a question: is PW able to manage large architectural/terrestrial cloud points? For example an abandoned industrial or historical building in a "difficult" terrain with slopes, vegetations, etc... Or is the data too noisy to manage for cloud2cloud registration?
I see a lot of people comparing softwares, but they all are quite expensive, so I can afford to buy just one, and to see if it fits my needs before... quite a mission impossible!
Hi Max, we use Polyworks for close range scan data but occasionally we get our hands on some terrestrial data. Polyworks seems to handle it pretty well, we had a demo of a Z&F yesterday (thanks Tony) I've attached a screenshot of the raw point data in Polyworks 'IMAlign' (quick 360 room scan from one position). Although the programme recognises the scanners data format you still have to mess about with some parameters but once sorted I think the results weren't too bad, certainly enough to do cloud to cloud registration and you can go on to knock out a pretty good surface from the data. Anybody any thoughts? Regards Joe
Polyworks Image.JPG
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InnovMetric has now released PolyWorks/Surveyor V11, a package dedicated specifically to the surveying applications and long-range digitising.
Among many new features, this package efficiently processes very large datasets thanks to:
• Native 64-bit version available for unlimited memory usage • Tiling methodology for importing huge datasets and processing only a fraction at once • Parallel processing on multicore multi-processor systems
Here is a document that summarizes PolyWorks/Surveyor V11's tools.
