view

Display point cloud

Syntax

view(player,ptCloud)

view(player,xyzPoints)

view(player,xyzPoints,color)

view(player,xyzPoints,colorMap)

Description

view(player,ptCloud) displays a point cloud in the pcplayer figure window, player. The points, locations, and colors are stored in the ptCloud object.

view(player,xyzPoints) displays the points of a point cloud at the locations specified by the xyzPoints matrix. The color of each point is determined by the z value.

view(player,xyzPoints,color) displays a point cloud with colors specified by color.

view(player,xyzPoints,colorMap) displays a point cloud with colors specified by colorMap.

Examples

View Rotating 3-D Point Cloud

Load point cloud.

ptCloud = pcread("teapot.ply");

Define a rotation matrix and 3-D transform.

x = pi/180; 
R = [ cos(x) sin(x) 0 0
     -sin(x) cos(x) 0 0
      0         0   1 0
      0         0   0 1];

tform = affine3d(R);

Compute x, y, and z limits that ensure that the rotated teapot is not clipped.

lower = min([ptCloud.XLimits ptCloud.YLimits]);
upper = max([ptCloud.XLimits ptCloud.YLimits]);
  
xlimits = [lower upper];
ylimits = [lower upper];
zlimits = ptCloud.ZLimits;

Create the player and customize player axis labels.

player = pcplayer(xlimits,ylimits,zlimits);

xlabel(player.Axes,"X (m)");
ylabel(player.Axes,"Y (m)");
zlabel(player.Axes,"Z (m)");

Rotate the teapot around the z-axis.

for i = 1:360      
    ptCloud = pctransform(ptCloud,tform);     
    view(player,ptCloud);     
end

Input Arguments

ptCloud — Point cloud

pointCloud object

Point cloud, specified as a pointCloud object. The object contains the locations, intensities, and RGB colors to render the point cloud.

Point Cloud Property	Color Rendering Result
Location only	Maps the z-value to a color value in the current color map.
Location and Intensity	Maps the intensity to a color value in the current color map.
Location and Color	Use provided color.
Location, Intensity, and Color	Use provided color.

player — Player

pcplayer object

Player for visualizing 3-D point cloud data streams, specified as a pcplayer object.

xyzPoints — Point cloud x, y, and z locations

M-by-3 numeric matrix | M-by-N-by-3 numeric matrix

Point cloud x, y, and z locations, specified as either an M-by-3 or an M-by-N-by-3 numeric matrix. The M-by-N-by-3 numeric matrix is commonly referred to as an organized point cloud. The xyzPoints numeric matrix contains M or M-by-N [x,y,z] points. The z values in the numeric matrix, which generally correspond to depth or elevation, determine the color of each point.

color — Color for points in the point cloud

1-by-3 RGB vector | short name of color | long name of color | M-by-3 matrix | M-by-N-by-3 matrix

Color for points in the point cloud, specified as a 1-by-3-RGB vector, an M-by-3 matrix, an M-by-N-by-3 matrix, a short color name, or a long color name. For details on color values, see the Color Value table.

• For single or double datatype, the Color RGB value must be specified in the range [0, 1].

• For uint8 datatype, the Color RGB value must be specified in the range [0, 255].

• The function stores the Color value as either an M-by-3 or M-by-N-by-3. If you specify the color as a string or a 1-by-3 vector, the function converts it to one of these dimensions.

Color	Format	Example
Specify one color for all points	short or long color name	"r" "red"
	1-by-3 vector (RGB triplet)	[255 0 0]
Specify a color for each point	cell array of character vectors	["red","yellow","blue"]
	M-by-3 matrix, as a list of RGB values	255 0 0 255 0 0 0 255 255
	M-by-N-by-3 matrix for an organized point cloud containing RGB values for each point, where M-by-N is the dimension of the point cloud.

colorMap — Point cloud color map for points

M-by-1 vector | M-by-N matrix

Point cloud color map for points, specified as one of:

• M-by-1 vector

• M-by-N matrix

Points Input	Color Selection	Valid Values of C
xyzPoints	Different color for each point	Vector or M-by-N matrix. The matrix must contain values that are linearly mapped to a color listed in the current colormap.

More About

Color Value

Color Name	Short Name	RGB Triplet	Appearance
"red"	"r"	[1 0 0]
"green"	"g"	[0 1 0]
"blue"	"b"	[0 0 1]
"cyan"	"c"	[0 1 1]
"magenta"	"m"	[1 0 1]
"yellow"	"y"	[1 1 0]
"black"	"k"	[0 0 0]
"white"	"w"	[1 1 1]

Version History

Introduced in R2015b