What are LiDAR Point Clouds?

Point clouds are collections of points representing specific 3D shapes, collected using scanning devices from professional scanners to smartphones. They can represent anything from a small object to a city-sized landscape. Utilizing Unreal Engine technology, we can help you import, visualize, and edit your point cloud datasets. Professionals such as design visualization specialists, manufacturers, set designers, and builders who need to combine 3D models with laser-scanned data can see an entire project at once and visualize it in real-time.

Church of the Nativity

By combining a sheer size of 16 billion points with a very uniform spread and an incredible 0.5mm density of the scan, Virtual Wonders managed to produce one of the largest and certainly the densest datasets we’ve seen to date. Their data proves that raw 3D scanned assets are capable of resolving photo-realistic levels of detail on a very large scale.

“Michal Cieciura and Phoboz Interactive are our ‘go to’ partners when we need to make the impossible possible. Thanks to their new Unreal Point Cloud plugin, we were able to take our massive scan of the incredibly detailed Church Of Nativity compound in Bethlehem — 16 billion points — and stream it in real time in Unreal. No additional processing or textures. Astounding. This is a massive paradigm shift in workflows, radically increasing the quality of experiences we can generate quickly, while reducing the time and cost required to deliver photo-realistic 3D models. Michal is passionate, responsive, and an absolutely brilliant programmer. There is no one I would rather work with on our most important and high-profile projects.”

Mark Bauman, President of the Virtual Wonders

Paroo Station

Visualizing the Paroo Station dataset in real-time was one of our most challenging projects. But it was also an incredible opportunity to push the technology farther than we thought was possible.

“We were able to quickly work through prototypes and brainstormed on ideas around how to stream larger data sets, and how to query portions of the LiDAR data. Both of which are currently being used extensively within our business today. I look forward to seeing where the work that Michal is doing with respect to the LiDAR plugin goes, and hope to have the opportunity to work with him on other projects.”

Johan Germishuys, Manager of Digital / Innovation at SNC-Lavalin

Island of Montreal

City-sized point cloud dataset:

• Over 550 tiles
• Over 500 square km
• Over 10 billion points

All running in real-time, powered by Unreal Engine 4

Borrowdale River

An example of how LiDAR point cloud data can work as a base for setting up a virtual scene.
Here, we are combining it with a collection of Speed Trees, Unreal Engine-powered dynamic lighting and shadows, as well as a number of post-processing effects.
The project has been designed to allow free exploration using VR goggles.