Good day all!
I was wondering if anyone know how to render the point cloud in V-ray? I am running the latest version of Sketchup Studio and I am not sure where to find this.
I create landscape designs and like to show the location of buildings, trees, topography, etc. from the point could (BLK 360). I would like to render the point cloud for all the existing conditions surrounding my project sites to save time modeling this info.
I am looking forward to everyone’s reply.
Hi thanks for your post! We have seen customers requests like this for rendering PC in V-Ray and we know V-Ray has that feature for 3DS-MAX. I do not think there is an easy way to render PC in V-Ray via SketchUp currently but it’s something that the product team is aware of. If I can find out a way, I will update you here 
Thank you. I look forward to your response.
Any update on this feature. I just signed up to studio and was having issues trying to render with the point cloud PLY file as a background and the render is ignoring the point cloud.
Hi, we will need to speak with Chaos team about making rendering point cloud available in V-Ray. What’s your use case of doing so? Do you just want to get a nice context for your project?
What i do is i make a scan with my iphone and send the point cloud file to icloud then i open that file with sketchup studio and i then design the project over the point cloud image. But when I do the render the point cloud image is not part of the render and it’s missing. I’m sure that vray cant render the point cloud but what would be nice is the point cloud image be the backdrop the the project I’m rendering. I’m no expert on sketchup or vray but from what I have this this is not a capability of the software but I’m hoping you know a way to pull this off. I hope this make sense if not let me know and i will do a short video.
Thanks
Barri
Hi has this feature been considered further? I would like to include my point cloud data in renders when submitting designs to clients.
thanks
Ash
Does anyone know if the latest release of V-Ray,(released earlier this month), includes point cloud support?
If yes, how do you go about getting it turned on?
Hi Kevin,
It is not yet. Can you send me some paragraphs as to how you would use the feature and why is it important for your workflows ? I think we briefly discussed it in our calls, but we did not spend too much time on this.
Thanks!
Olivia
Good afternoon Olivia,
I do landscape design and use the point cloud for the existing context, (buildings, neighboring grounds, etc). i just clip out the area of the point cloud that I am replacing and leave the rest. It gives me as the designer a great clarity and understanding of the site and surrounding context. It also greatly reduces the modeling time I require.
Some of my clients wish to see how their landscapes look at nighttime with lighting suggestions. I would also like to offer photo realistic daytime images too.
Kevin Post
Work in progress - SketchUp image export
@olivia_feng I have sent Choas an skp file with a point cloud. As I understand, they are currently trying to make V-Ray for SU work with Point clouds. 
I recall asking this same question during a Trimble webinar re point cloud rendering . This would be superbe… no update yet?
Does anyone know if there has been any update from VRAY regarding the Point Cloud renderings? Really looking forward to using this feature.
It would be interesting to learn if point clouds were a priority for V-ray. Since point clouds are not geometry, they would like to need to build an entirely new rendering engine. Have you posted to the V-ray forum or reached out to them?
As of last year, point clouds were supported by a few of the other V Ray platforms like V Ray for 3DMax. I have been messaging Chaos VRay every so often to see how this request is going.
If I am not mistake, the SketchUp product team is also working with or requesting Chaos VRay for Sketchup team to supported the point clouds in their renderer. Hopefully, it will happen soon.
Olivia,
Have you heard anything from Chaos about an update on their support for Point Clouds in VRay for SketchUp?
Hi Kevin,
I will check in with Chaos again. I did get a sense they were looking into it.
Thanks for following up !
I’m a complete novice in point clouds, but it seems they can contain a colour info depending how they were made.
This is what the french have been doing these last few years (between two strikes), a lidar scan of the country
here is a test
https://demo-lidar.ign.fr/?dataset=lidarhd-class
they did a test of a few areas here and there, (look for la Salavèze top right), their LIDAR scan provides point clouds with a colour info. and in the viewer, they can simply apply a thickness to each point to make a impression of volumes.
I’m wondering how that would present in Vray, taking the point could, giving a thickness to each point (for a clay render) or even a thickness + colour.
That’s pretty much how twinmotion does it - you can achieve the same thing in blender also using that technique
Olivia,
You’re Welcome.
Did you hear anything back from them?
