Point Clouds

Learn what point clouds are and how to use them in PyTorch3D.

The point cloud

A point cloud is simply a list of points in a 3D Euclidean space. Point clouds can represent many things, such as the surface of a scanned object, particles moving through a volume, or key points in a 3D scene. In addition to its (x,y,z)(x, y, z) coordinates, each point can also contain a normal vectorThree-dimensional vectors that are perpendicular to a surface at a given point, indicating the outward-facing side of the surface. for the surface it represents, RGB color, and any other point-specific features. A typical point cloud has an arbitrary ordering of points (although they can be sorted) and no notion of topology or a surface.

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