Poisson outputs only vertices rather the mesh itself?

[y22ma]

Seems like an odd choice, considering poisson reconstruction is intended for computing a surface model (mesh) rather than pointclouds.

Is there plan to add the ability to output a mesh file (stl, obj, etc)?

[abellgithub]

Yes. I'm not sure why we're doing what we're currently doing. @chambbj ?

[chambbj]

@y22ma We are not using the surface reconstruction filters at the moment. I added them some time ago now, mostly as an exercise. That being said, you should be able to put something together using existing PCL capabilities, e.g., https://github.com/PointCloudLibrary/pcl/blob/master/io/include/pcl/io/obj_io.h#L333-L342. Patches and other insights into how PDAL can better support this type of application are always welcome.

[abellgithub]

Fixed with new filters.poisson.

[khelkun]

Fixed with new filters.poisson.

@abellgithub
I guess it's fixed but the meshing exercise confused me. With this exercise, one obtains a PLY which does not contain a surface mesh but a point cloud.

One must add the --writers.ply.faces=true to obtain a surface mesh PLY:

pdal translate -i ./exercises/analysis/clipping/stadium.copc.laz \
-o ./exercises/analysis/meshing/first-mesh.ply \
poisson --filters.poisson.depth=16 \
--writers.ply.faces=true \
--verbose 4

Or it worked out for me with the equivalent pipeline:

[
    "./exercises/analysis/clipping/stadium.copc.laz",
    {
        "type":"filters.poisson"
    },
    {
        "type":"writers.ply",
        "faces":true,
        "filename":"./exercises/analysis/meshing/first-mesh.ply"
    }
]

N.B: with the pipeline the default value is 8 for the depth option of the poisson filter.