Hello Manifold Tech and the community! This is Keith again from Part 1 of creating my digital twin VR experience. In the last post, I showed the overall basic procedure of the project where I can display my digital twin in the VR headset. But in this post, I will put into more details of each procedure, with the addition of some help of my colleagues.
Resources needed:
3D LiDAR Scanner
Windows Computer with dGPU (Apple computers are not advisable at the moment)
VR Headset (latest firmware)
3D LiDAR Software (latest version)
WebGL based point-cloud renderer (Potree)
Step 1: Gather 3D point cloud data with a LiDAR Scanner
The first step is needing to have some point cloud data for me to use to preview a 3D digital twin in the Potree viewer. For my LiDAR Scanner, I'll be using the MindPalace-360 by Manifold Tech, but any 3D LiDAR scanner should be able to handle the job. And I will be 3D scanning a children's playground, a football pitch, my house, and the BBQ area of the beach since these are memorable places for me to look back at like a time capsule.
Unfortunately, it was raining on that and I had limited time in using the MindPalace-360, so I had to 3D scan when the rain stopped. After gathering some 3D point cloud as materials, I need to place all the 3D scanning in the computer and prepare the necessary tools for the digital twin VR Experience.
Step 2: Setting up the folder structure
Step 3: Import the 3D scanning files into any 3D LiDAR Software
Step 4: Upload the .las format on a WebGL based point-cloud renderer
Step 5: Setup the VR Headset and Potree Web Server
Step 6: Display the digital twin into VR
Conclusion:
When we completed the above procedure, we should be able to view the 3D point cloud in your browser. It should have some parameters and settings on the left side of the screen. Moreover, there should be a VR button on the top-left corner next to the parameters.
This should be the whole explanation of this VR Experience setup. If there are unclear instructions or have any questions, please put down the comment below so we can help each other as a community! I hope this sharing can provide insights of the capabilities in the usage of digital twin models!