Good afternoon TBC’ers! Today I will be showing you a simple, yet extremely handy tool, to use when working with point cloud data: the Keep In and Keep Out command. The Keep In/ Keep Out commands are great to clean up point cloud data or aid in temporary point cloud selections by improving visibility. Once you have point cloud data loaded into your plan or 3D view, we can use the rectangle select or polygon select tool to highlight a region of your point cloud:
Next, navigate to the Point Clouds ribbon under Regions where you will find the Keep In/ Keep Out tools:
The Keep Out command hides all points within your selection boundary or selected point cloud regions:
In comparison, the Keep In command hides all points outside your selection boundary or selected point cloud regions:
It is important to remember that these commands do not permanently alter your point cloud data - you can simply hit “Restore All” to view your point cloud in its original form again:
The Keep In/ Keep Out commands can also be used in conjunction with the “Create Region” or “Add to Region” tools. This is great if you are only interested in analyzing a small portion of your point cloud, so you can put unwanted points into a “junk” region:
I hope this tip come in handy next time you are working with point cloud data in TBC!