Opening point cloud in SolidWorks

[roldy]

I have a csv file with coordinates of a quarry. When I open up the file there is no elevation showing. It's almost as if SolidWorks flattens the point cloud onto one plane. Why is this happening? Attached is a file containing csv file.

 

[roldy]

On the sketch the contour intervals are 2 ft. The guy that gave me the drawing said that the drawing had units of feet. I'm thinking because this is survey data, the units were not transferred properly. I agree with the contour elevation unit issue. I have been watching the y parameter value as the points are importing and I have figured something out. I recorded two successive y parameter values. I took the difference and then divide that value by 2ft. I get a value of 3.280839895. I call this my scaling factor. I then took a y parametric value, say 1856.95538058 and divided this by the scaling factor. I get 566. Which is correct for that particular y parametric value. I am now at contour 576 ft. This is almost finished. Crossing my fingers I don't get a squashed point cloud.

You are correct. I had to manually insert the elevation data in Excel. The person who gave me this file does not know the correlation between contour increments and plot coordinates.


Edit: Importing just finished. No success. Point cloud is still squashed. I'm not sure of any accurate way to obtain the scaling factor I need.

 

[roldy]

Ok, I found a scaling factor. I have my SW file with the dwg opened up. The contour lines are separated into different sketches on different planes according to their elevation (values from the dwg drawing). The planes are separated at 2 ft intervals. I created a 3D sketch and converted a point from the maximum elevation which was at 582 I believe. I then measured the distance from this point to my bottom contour plane (526 contour). The value was something like 1xx.xxx. I then multiplied that value to just the elevation values in the Excel file and am now importing them into SW. Hopefully this works.

 

[djhurayt]

Can you take a measurment, say a box that will surround your point cloud as you have it now in the plan view?

FYI: this response was related to your previous last response, you posted while I was typing

 

[roldy]

I could do that. I will have to try after this second attempt of importing is finished. I will still try the bounding box idea if this doesn't work. I believe this will work because my scaled of magnitude for all three point parameters are now the same.

 

[djhurayt]

Couple of puzzling issues and a new line of thinking

First a correction:
I initially stated that it looked like you had a depth of 584units, this should have been 58 units (584-526). This also make you elevation only 0.02% (two one-hundredths of a percent) of your plot area. Yes this is going to produce a very flat cloud.

Also your new data file, it seem you striped a lot of data from the file which is something I was going to talk about for testing. But I notice your elevations now have a 584unit range, but it jumps from 526 to 1110. ???

OK, new line of thinking:
*You stated that your data guys says the units are feet, correct ???
*How do we know the magnitude of the units between contour intervals ???
*Based on some views from the side of the quarry, a depth of 500 something feet looks a lot more accurate than 50 something feet ???, my thinking is 500ish based on quarries I have seen

Based on you initial data set it appears that you have 25 + maybe 5 missing elevation sets of data. If the contour are only 2ft that makes a roughly 60ft deep quarry. This quarry LOOKS to be much deeper than that, so maybe they are 20ft contours which makes a more reasonable 600ft deep quarry. ???

And again going back to the Google map view the quarry appears to be in the range of 2000± feet across. Posted this already, but again is it possible that the plan data is in hundreds of a foot, such that your plot area of 243,000 by 245,000 is hundredths of a foot ==> this really being 2430ft, and 2450ft (fairly close to my 2000ft rough estimate of the width of this quarry).

???

 

[djhurayt]

Something else just clicked, upon rereading this thread. Your scaling factor. You do realize that your 3.280839895 scaling factor is precisely how many feet are in a meter. I think we may be mixing meters and feet somehow/where.

 

[roldy]

As far as the jump goes in the data, that was wrong on my part. My first attempt at solving this problem was thinking that I needed to reverse normalize the elevations. I will double check in progeCAD the contour intervals, they have text on them. I will have to check in the dwg if they included a scale but I don't remember seeing one.

 

[djhurayt]

Oh yes, I forgot to get back to your data. One thing that you might want to do is to strip everything but your top elevation data and you lowest elevation data. That way the import will be much quicker and you may be able then look at an elevation view and see that you have 2 distinct layers of data rather than 30 layer squeezed in the same vertical distance.

 

[djhurayt]

And by the way I just notice "Aerospace" what are you doing dealing with a hole in the ground, don't you guys generally work with things that are above the grade?

 

[roldy]

I will try your idea. My importing finished and the point cloud is not squashed but I need to make sure it is correct. I attached a pdf of the drawing with the contour elevation labels.

Yea. I have a masters degree in aerospace engineering and have been looking to get into my career since graduating 2013. I initially got this job as a guy out on the manufacturing floor but then the higher ups found out I have degrees and SW experience and I got moved into the office. Still looking for an aerospace job though.

 

[roldy]

My bounding dimensions are delta x = 615.841512, delta y = 509.50446. I don't see anywhere on the drawing a scale.

 

[djhurayt]

I think I have your answer.

Based on the contour plot you sent. The elevation along the rim at what loks to be some sort of pumphouse looks to be at 850 units. The deepest part of the lake appears to be in the southeast corner is is at 526 units. That is a difference of 324 units. I think you assumed each of your sets/layers of data represented each 2unit (brown) contour line. I contend that each of your datasets/layers is for each 10unit (green) contour line.
Why?
Based on your inital data and the elevation coords you added, there are 30 layers of data. Approximatley 300units of elevation devided by 30 sets/layers says these are 10unit intervals. Plus if you go on the assumption that the bottom of the lake is at 526units and add 30 2units layers you only get up to elevation 586units as your first set of data suggested. However we know that the rim of the quarry is somewhere in the neighborhood of 850units.
Therefore:
The contour intervals of your data must be 10units. Most likely feet, because if it were meters this quarry would be approximately 1000feet deep. Can't see that, 300feet sounds more reasonable.

OK, now your plan view coords. Based on the fact that you just told me your plot is 615units x 510units and the idea the per the Google map the lake appears to approx 2000ft wide, 615 meters times 3.28fet per meter reults in 2017feet.

So based on this I think your contour elevation are at 10foot intervals and that your plan view data is in meters.
So I think you need to convert you plan view data to feet (devide by 3.28) and change your contour intervals to 10feet (change 526 to 530, then 528 to 540, 530 to 550, after 30 layers you will be at the rim of the quarry (850ish).

 

[roldy]

In the drawing if I click on any contour line I can view the elevation. I clicked on a brown contour line next to a green one. I get 548 for the brown and 550 for the green. That is why I assumed each contour line is 2 ft apart.

 

[djhurayt]

I believe you, just from looking at the PDF there is no doubt that (2 feet between brown lines) is 100% correct. My point is that with 30 layers of data based on your asuumed 526, 528, 530, ... would only get you part way out of the quarry. That would only get you up to elevation 584 as your origanal data suggestes, but we know the rim of the quarry is around the 850 mark, so your elevation only take you 1/5 of the way up the quarry walls. That is why I contend that each of your sets/layers of plan data are 10 feet apart or every 5th (green) contour.

 

[roldy]

I should note that I'm not going all the way up to the quarry rim. I only need the contours from 526 to 584. Sorry for the confusion.

Edit: I just figured out my problem. After I move the contours to their own elevation layers I explode each contour because SW had problems opening the sketch. I got the error below.

Entities within a block can't be merged with entities in other block. The Explode Blocks option is recommended for merging.

So to get around this error I exploded each contour line. SW had no problem opening the drawing then. Here's the kicker, if I explode a contour line that starts at an x value of 30.155809, the x value changes to 352.735189!!!

 

[roldy]

Disregard the comment about the exploding. I'm going to try something else. I think I may have fixed this.

 

[djhurayt]

Yes that certainly clears that up. The water looks to be at about 560. And NOW I understand, are only going to the area marked with the red lines at your 584 mark.

Which explains why I was not seeing this little flat area between these two shear walls

Your data just goes up to that first wall.

In this case I agree with your data sets being on 2unit (thinking feet per above) intervals. This still leaves the plan coords in meters and contours in feet issue to resolve. And I still believe the plan units are most likely meters based on your 615 x 510 surrounding box and a 2000 x 1500 foot looking Google maps plot area.

You’re making a fishing map of the lake bottom aren’t you?
I had now idea there was something this close to Atlanta. Has this been turned into a park of some sort? FYI, I am just up the road in Greenville, SC. Good luck on your career. Nothing in Charleston with Boing?

Take care,
david

 

[roldy]

I don't know all the details of the project but I believe they are turning this into a park. I opened the drawing in SW again and it worked. My width of the quarry is 600 something. I will post back again with a finished point cloud.

No luck with Boeing or any other aerospace company. Very competitive.

 

[djhurayt]

Yes 600 of just the water basically, keep forgetting about that piece of the puzzle (vs. the entire 2000ft quarry) so I retract the plot coords being in meters, foots it is.

As far as career, hang in there something will come along. Have a GREAT weekend now that we will finally get a SUNNY one.

 

[Brad805]

I will try another methods to create a solid mesh that can be imported into SW. I assume that is your real goal. The contour drawing looks good, but if you are trying to model the quarry walls I think you are missing some contours in the attached drawing. There is a TIN (triangulated iregular network) in the file that the surveyor created to generate the contours. I have attached an image of that in 3D with the contours.

Edit: I see you are only trying to model a small area now.