Working with Point Clouds
      Back to home
      1. Knowledge Base
      2. Aura
      3. Working with Point Clouds

      Colorization Workflow

       

       

      Contents

      Introduction

      Emesent’s colorization feature allows you to augment your point clouds with true color, providing additional context for visualization and analysis. Colorization works by merging Hovermap’s LiDAR scan data with video recorded by a GoPro that has been mounted to Hovermap.

      The basic process for colorization is as follows.

      Workflow-Colorize

      Before you start, ensure that the .mp4 (perspective camera) or .360 file(s) are placed in the scan folder that contains the raw bag files. Open the video files after transferring using a suitable video playback software (e.g., VLC player which works for the .360 format) to ensure the file is not corrupted. This is a great opportunity to see which image mask to use.

      Refer to the Creating a Custom Mask section for instructions on creating your own image mask.

      Step 1: Collect your data

      1. Go to Working with colorization for more information on how to set up your Hovermap and GoPro for colorization and for colorization-specific scanning techniques.

      2. Check that you have everything necessary to create a colorized point cloud:

        • An updated license dongle with a valid Colourisation license.

        • Your Hovermap scan folder (containing raw data from Hovermap).

        • A GoPro video file (an MP4 file contained within the scan folder).

      Step 2: Configure your scan job

      1. Open Emesent Aura. Make sure you have an active Colorize license.

      2. In the Process tab, click Process Scan.

      3. In the Configure New Scan Job panel, select the Colorize workflow.

      4. Click Add Dataset.

      5. In the dialog box that displays, browse for the folder that contains the point cloud to be colorized. Ensure the scan has been processed and the .mp4 file or .360 file is in the same directory. If the video file is detected, it will appear in the Video file(s) column (multiple video files will appear if detected depending on the scan duration).

      6. If there are multiple output folders in the selected scan folder, click the arrow beside the output folder then select from the list.
        In addition, in the Scan File column, the non-georeferenced output is selected by default. If you want to colorize a georeferenced point cloud, click the arrow beside the scan file then select the file that is labelled Scan Processed with Landmarks.

      7. Once you have selected the point cloud to colorize. click Save.

      8. In the Location field, enter the preferred name for the output folder. Emesent Aura will create this folder, which stores all the processed results and data, as a child directory within the raw point cloud folder.

      9. Select the processing profile to use. Go to the Processing Profiles section in the Emesent Aura user manual for more information on available profiles.

        Step 3: Start processing

        1. Click Start to begin processing. The panel will show a progress bar showing how far along you are in your processing job. In addition to the progress bar, the elapsed time of the processing job is shown to the right.
        2. When prompted, click Review Frames.
        3. In the file explorer window, manually delete any unwanted frames from your video.
        4. Once the unwanted frames are removed, return to Emesent Aura and click Resume.

        Note
        If a failure occurs during processing, the Retry buttons becomes available. Click this button to attempt to process the current job from the last successful stage.

        Step 4: View your final output

        1. Once processing has been completed, click Open folder to view the output folder or View to view your colorized point cloud in the viewport.

        2. Click Close to remove the scan information from the processing space.

        3. The image frames used during colorization can be exported with the colorized point cloud. These images are found in the Intermediate files > frame_extraction > frames folder. This folder also contains 3 CSV files with pose information in formats compatible with export to Pointerra, Cintoo, Bentley, and Prevu3D.

        Colorization Output Folder.png

         

        How do I colorize a Merged Point Cloud?

        Colorizing a Merged dataset involves Merging the datasets first, then colorizing each individual scan as a separate Colorization processing job as illustrated in the diagram below.

        Colorized_Extract_Merged Dataset_Workflow.png

        Below are the steps to colorize a Merged dataset:

        1. Merge the dataset by following the Merge Workflow before starting colorization.

        2. Select the Colorize workflow in the Processing Tray.

        3. Add the scan folder that contains the merged dataset output.

        4. Set the merge output folder as your scan folder.


        image-20250409-040602.png

        5. Select the first scan file to colorize.


        image-20250409-040529.png

        6. Select the video files that correspond to the selected scan file.


        image-20250409-040644.png

         

        7. Save the configuration.

        8. Adjust processing settings as required by following the Colorization Workflow Guide.

        9. Start processing.

        10. Repeat steps 5–9 for each additional scan file, selecting the appropriate scan and video files for each.