How to generate a .pnts file

[ghost]

Hi,

What is the best way of generating a .pnts file? Are there any programs or utilities available?

Thank you.

[pjcozzi]

Hi @skiplist, I don't believe anything is available yet, and I expect some changes to this tile format in the next few months as the current version is pretty simple and could be more efficient. To keep up on the news, follow this forum thread.

[ghost]

Thanks Patrick.

We are trying to glue something together for a demo and were wondering what the current format of the .pnts file is? Is the graphic at: https://github.com/AnalyticalGraphicsInc/3d-tiles/blob/master/TileFormats/Points/README.md currently the right format for the file at ./Specs/Data/Cesium3DTiles/Points/Points/points.pnts ?

I understand this will be changing in the future, but we'd like to glue a demo together ASAP, and if we could know the current format, we would be successful. Would be happy to submit our utility that creates the .pnts file as a PR.

Sincerely

[pjcozzi]

Yes, that is the latest format used in the 3d-tiles branch of the Cesium repo.

This repo is for the spec only so please do not submit a PR here, but do let me know about it and I'll start to track the ecosystem like we do for glTF, https://github.com/KhronosGroup/glTF#gltf-tools

[ghost]

Hi Patrick,

Sorry to be a bother again. I am attempting to parse the points.pnts file and I'm seeing the following as the beginning of the file:

{ magic: <Buffer 1f 8b 08 00>,
  version: 0,
  byteLength: 724119,
  pointsLength: 2000459613,
  positions: 
   [ 2.139935304512619e-7,
     1.8833269362431015e-14,
     3.228909246097769e-14 ] }

I am parsing it via:

var bParser = require('binary-parser').Parser;
var pointsHeader = new bParser().buffer('magic', {
    length : 4
}).uint32('version', {}).uint32('byteLength', {}).uint32('pointsLength', {})
        .array('positions', {
            type : 'floatle', // or floatbe?
            length : function() {
                return 3;
                // return this.pointsLength / 3;
            }
        });

It looks a bit off as the positions seem out of the ordinary. Again, I really appreciate your help on the short notice, especially given that the format will be changing soon.

Sincerely

[pjcozzi]

Have you looked at the sample data here: https://github.com/AnalyticalGraphicsInc/cesium/tree/3d-tiles/Specs/Data/Cesium3DTiles/Points/Points

Also, the best place to ask these questions is the Cesium forum. Just a heads up that you are on the bleeding edge, most 3D Tiles users right now are using the b3dm tile format, not pnts yet.

[ghost]

Thanks Patrick. Upon viewing that link I see now that it says the file is "gzipped". I changed the extension to .gz, unzipped it, and now the data is looking a lot better. I'll see what I can do with this new information. Before, I did not know the file was gzipped!

Thank you!

[pjcozzi]

Glad you are on the right track.

I'd appreciate a screenshot when you have something working. Good luck!

[ghost]

Things are looking much better now

node ./pnt-reader.js 
{ magic: 'pnts',
  version: 1,
  byteLength: 1875016,
  pointsLength: 125000,
  positions: [ 34.58336639404297, 88.80476379394531, -30.29364776611328 ] }

Is that x, y, z in decimal degrees?