Point clouds, splats and photos in one georeferenced scene

A modern capture produces more than one thing. A handheld SLAM scanner gives you a point cloud and, increasingly, a Gaussian splat. A drone job gives you a model, a terrain surface and an orthophoto. Add your notes and site photos, and the client has five files in three formats.

MapShare puts them in one scene, in one coordinate system, on one link. This post is about what happens once the client clicks that link.

The layers

Point clouds

The point cloud is the measurable record of the site. MapShare streams it in the browser, so a large cloud opens without a long download first. Viewers can show it in its scanned colours, or coloured by intensity or elevation, with a colour ramp.

Gaussian splats

A Gaussian splat is the photoreal model many scanners and drone tools now produce. It looks like the site, which makes it the view most clients understand straight away. MapShare loads .ply, .splat and .ksplat files and XGRIDS LCC2 folders, and streams the tiled splats Share Studio builds.

Meshes, maps and drawings

You can add meshes (.obj, .glb, .gltf, .stl), GeoTIFF rasters, GeoJSON and DXF. A PDF drawing comes in as an overlay you line up with two points.

Open and live data

You can add public layers such as cadastre, planning zones, hazards and imagery from the built-in open data catalogue, or connect your own ArcGIS, OGC, WFS or GeoJSON source. Live layers refresh while they're visible, so the scan sits next to current information.

Why the coordinates matter

Every layer is placed in real-world coordinates. When the scan has a coordinate system, for example an MGA zone after RTK alignment, the scene is placed there, over a basemap, and other georeferenced data lines up with it.

When a scan has no coordinate system, for example a local SLAM scan with no RTK or control, MapShare keeps it in the scanner's local metres. It doesn't guess a location and pin it somewhere on the map. The point cloud, the splat, the trajectory and any Share Studio drawings still sit on top of each other, because they share the scanner's frame.

The practical result: nobody has to nudge layers into place, and the client never sees a cloud floating a few metres above its own model.

What a client can do on the link

Look around

Orbit, pan and zoom with a mouse or touch, or walk through with the keyboard. It works in a browser on a laptop, tablet or phone.

Switch layers

Turn layers on and off, and change their opacity. A common use: show the splat so the client recognises the site, then switch to the point cloud to see the actual capture behind it.

Measure

The measuring tools cover distance, area, angle and volume. You pick points on the photoreal view and the numbers come from the point cloud.

How far you rely on those numbers is the same judgement you'd make with the cloud in desktop software: it depends on how the site was captured, controlled and registered. MapShare shows the capture you uploaded. It doesn't make it more accurate.

Read notes and photos

Notes, marks and photos stay in the scene where you put them, sorted into folders. Viewers can switch folders on and off, so a defect list doesn't clutter a progress review.

Compare side by side

The A/B view splits the screen so two layers can be compared on either side of a divider.

Meet in the scene

Schedule a walkthrough from the project. The invite goes out from your connected Outlook or Google calendar, or from MapShare if you haven't connected one. Everyone joins the same 3D scene, with voice and a laser pointer to point at the thing you're talking about. It's often quicker than a site visit to explain one detail.

What you can do as the owner

Some tools are for you while you prepare the scene:

• Animate: set a camera path and export video or stills for a report or presentation
• Scan playback: play a handheld scan back along the route it was walked, with the points appearing as the scanner captured them
• Start view: choose the view people land on when they open the link

Who can do what

When you share by email, you choose a role for each person:

• Viewer: looks around and measures
• Annotator: also adds notes
• Editor: edits the scene

If you switch on a Public link, you choose the level for everyone who opens it without signing in: View to look around only, or Explore to use the tools. Explore visitors can measure and add notes in their own browser tab, but nothing they do is saved to your project.

A website embed is simpler again. Visitors can orbit, pan and zoom from your saved start view, with no tools or layer panel.

What it isn't

MapShare is for delivering and presenting captures. It doesn't replace your registration or processing software, and it isn't a CAD package. You finish the capture in the tools you already use, and MapShare gets it in front of the people who need to see it.

See it for yourself

You can open sample scans from the home page without an account. When you're ready to send your own, request access.