How to Quickly Align and Merge Two Point Clouds in CloudCompare

In this tutorial we show you how to finely align two overlapping point cloud scans using CloudCompare.

Tips for a Successful Scan:
Scan an overlapping section of a scene when using the EveryPoint app such as a common side of a building.

Repeat the fine registration operation multiple times to increase alignment.

[eggcleaver]

That tutorial was exactly what I was looking for. Thanks so much.

[codymaasen]

Thank you for this! Having issues with another app with my scanner and this will help me complete a project

[floppyk]

A different way if you want all the detail from the other pointcloud is to merge the 2 pointclouds, and subsample the spacing with a really low number. that eliminates one pointclouds points that are located at the same position as the other pointcloud. Hope it makes sense :)

[Canihelpyouz]

why when I have them close and I align 2 roughly aligned scans does it pull then apart

[stijnjanssen]

Great tutorial! What do you need to do if you have a point cloud (PC) from a laser scanner (LS) and a point cloud from photogrametry? (PG) The accuracy from the LS is +/-2mm, from the PG is +/-50mm. I do not want to scale the PC from the LC, that one is correct for me. How do I scale the PC from the PG?

[daniellobo]

thank you for the tutorial, I have been using the app recently to scan hvac systems during construction, really useful. One question: I saw something about a beta program, does this have any cost or just anyone can try for free?

[warrenwootton]

Great tutorial Jonathan. Thank you. If a single scan is slightly out of scale, how do we rescale it in CC please?

[videojeroki]

for scalability reasons, any idea how to not rely on the initial manual registration (rotation/translation) of the point cloud ?

[carpediem-lteh]

After aligning the files I am unable to select the 2 meshes to finer register the details why is it happening

[stephenmeehan]

Can't figure out why my point clouds are not aligning. After very closely aligning the points through the equivalent point pairs button, I press the next button to "Finely Register" the clouds but the alignment goes wacky with the two clouds at different x, y and z angles. Don't know what I am doing wrong. Any advice?