Merge pointclouds?

[SamHowell]

Is there a way to merge pointclouds in ICE?

I have attempted a series of get data, switch context, set data, add point etc. but this is very time consuming and is not really working.

Can it be done, without jumping through hundred of hoops?

Thanks

[Tekano]

get pointcloud.point position > add point ?

[Hirazi Blue]

I think "Clone Point" (instead of "Add Point") would be slightly more helpful in this case

[xsisupport]

You could do something with Clone Point.

clone each cloud onto the same target
on the target, create a simulated ICE tree and add a Simulate Particles
move the shared ICE trees up to the Sim stack

That gets you part of the way there. Anything special you were doing after emit has to be reproduced in the ICE tree on the new cloud

[iamVFX]

If you want to transfer attributes from point clouds, with the magic power of "Build Array from Set" node you can do trick like this:

[rimg=800]http://img716.imageshack.us/img716/215/916df2c8a26541a0ad05a4c.png[/rimg]

[Tekano]

ha ok guys clone might be in the manual but ive found clone points to be pretty flaky in the past. it creates a virtual ice tree inside another one and you end up not knowing which ice tree your editing also some inexplicable behaviours around this that I didnt like. depends what Sam wants to do with the merged points but add point works fine for me to bring points in from another cloud wheras clone points just gave me a headache

[SamHowell]

Wow, what a response. Thanks a lot guys.

As with everything in ICE there seems to be a number of ways to approach this. I shall give it a try soon.

Thanks again.

[druitre]

Hi guys, longtime bump: I am so curious about IamVFX's answer concerning transferring attributes (the link is dead) - add points works allright for merging pointclouds but that doesn't give attributes. Can anybody explain how to use 'buid array from set' to do this?

-Jasper

[owei]

Hey Jasper!

Well, to get the correct value copied over to the specific point, you will have to build something like this. The idea is, to pick the correct value from the array by using the index the point array. Let me know, if this helps ;)

Cheers,
oli

[rray]

Hi
(edit) Just saw oli's reply still leaving this here since it's a slightly different approach

What could work is this, say you want to merge pointcloud B into pointcloud A, so you're modifying A. The attribute that you want to transfer is myAttr.

In A's ICE tree, you call add point and inside it's execute, you get B's myAttr as an array using "build array from set", and set the added point's myAttr by selecting from that array.

You'll have to store nbPoints before that, and use the new point's index (get Point ID) minus the stored value as the index into that array.
-rr

[druitre]

Hi Oli, Reinhart, that is quick!
I was actually trying something close to your solution, just didn't think of the 'get element index' node so was getting nowhere, I was trying particle ID. Which seems to be what Rray is suggesting. But in a way that works

But: when i follow your tree Oli, the 'set data' node (I'm setting Scale) remains red, and doesn't work. Must be doing something wrong, I can't get/set any property, the 'set' is always red.

Rray, can you give a screenshot of your tree? I don't follow. What you describe sounds like what I was trying, but I keep on getting 'Array of 3D vector' which doesn't plug into 3D vector input of my set data nodes.

[Bullit]

This was the image from iamVFX

[owei]

Hey Jasper!

Are you sure, that "scale" is in a per point context?? I Did some tests here with scaling and it worked with my approach..so, don´t know what is going wrong..

An other thing you can try, is to fetch the data via "closest location" from original pointcloud...

[druitre]

Hi Oli,

I'm setting up the tree from IamVFX now, that one's working (great find Bullit!!) If I can try later, I'll let you know.

Jasper

[NNois]

Hey, reminds me "LK clone" from LeonardKoch
https://www.dropbox.com/s/seiaiz3ld4k1b7x/LK%20Clone%20Pointcloud.xsicompound?dl=0

[druitre]

HA! That one is brilliant, thanks NNois! (And Leonard, of course!)