Supported Point File Formats

Input File Formats

Thinkbox Particle File Formats

  • Thinkbox PRT v1.1 Particle File

    • The PRT v1.1 specification was developed for and implemented in Thinkbox Software’s KRAKATOA particle rendering, manipulation and management toolkit.

    • SEQUOIA supports both reading and writing of this file format to ensure compatibility with the KRAKATOA software, as well as with other 3D applications that support the format.

  • Thinkbox PRT v2 Particle File

    • The PRT v2 specification is a compatibility-breaking revision of the PRT file format.

    • SEQUOIA can output in this file format, and KRAKATOA has been updated to support reading it, but it is mainly used as the base for the SPRT file format (see below)

  • Thinkbox SPRT File Format

    • The SPRT file format is the native storage format of SEQUOIA.

    • SPRT files are valid PRT v2 files, with an extra chunk that a conforming PRT2 reader would skip over.

    • See the PRT v2 specification for details.

.LAS

ASPRS Website

The LAS file format is a public file format for the interchange of 3-dimensional point cloud data data between data users. Although developed primarily for exchange of lidar point cloud data, this format supports the exchange of any 3-dimensional x,y,z tuplet. The LAS file format is a binary file format that maintains information specific to the lidar nature of the data while not being overly complex.

.LAZ

LASzip Website

LASzip - a free open source product of rapidlasso GmbH - quickly turns bulky LAS files into compact LAZ files without information loss.

ASTM E57

ASTM Website: Standard Specification for 3D Imaging Data Exchange, Version 1.0

The specification describes a data file exchange format for three-dimensional (3D) imaging data, known as the ASTM E57 3D file format, Version 1.0. An E57 file is capable of storing 3D point data (those produced by 3D imaging systems), attributes associated with 3D point data (color and intensity), and 2D imagery (digital photographs obtained using a 3D imaging system). The specification describes all data that will be stored in the file, which is a combination of binary and eXtensible Markup Language (XML) formats.

Leica Point File Formats

  • Leica PTG

  • Leica PTS

  • Leica PTX

ASCII Text Files

  • CSV Comma-Separated Values Text File

    • CSV files are ASCII text files containing rows and columns of data where the row represents a data record (e.g. a point definition), and the columns represent the data channel components.

    • The file can contain an optional first header row defining the meaning of the data columns; if no header exists, SEQUOIA will request the manual mapping of values to point data channel components.

    • In addition to comma, spaces, colons and semicolons are also accepted as value separators.

    • The specification of the CSV format supported by SEQUOIA is available as part of the KRAKATOA documentation.

  • XYZ ASCII Text File

    • XYZ files are supported as a variation of the CSV file format (see above).

    • Usually they contain X, Y and Z position components, but additional data is supported.

  • TXT ASCII Text File

    • TXT files are supported as a variation of the CSV file format (see above).

PLY File

  • SEQUOIA can read the vertex list definition of a PLY file as a point cloud.

  • The same file format including polygon data is supported by SEQUOIA as a mesh I/O file format.

PLY File Format on Wikipedia

PLY is a computer file format known as the Polygon File Format or the Stanford Triangle Format. It was principally designed to store three-dimensional data from 3D scanners. The data storage format supports a relatively simple description of a single object as a list of nominally flat polygons. A variety of properties can be stored, including: color and transparency, surface normals, texture coordinates and data confidence values. The format permits one to have different properties for the front and back of a polygon. There are two versions of the file format, one in ASCII, the other in binary.

RIEGL Files

  • RIEGL RSP Project

  • RIEGL RDS 3D Data File

  • RIEGL RDBX RDB v2.0

Zoller+Froehlich Z+F File Formats

  • ZFX Z+F 3D Scan

  • ZFPRJ Z+F Project File

RealFlow Particle Files

  • RealFlow BIN Particle File

  • RealFlow RPC Particle File

Output File Formats

  • The following file formats described above can also be exported by SEQUOIA:

    • Thinkbox SPRT File Format

    • Thinkbox PRT v1.1, PRT v2.0 Particle File Formats

    • RealFlow BIN Particle File

    • ASTM E57 File

    • CSV Comma-Separated Values Text File