Point Cloud Visualizer 3.1 Documentation

About Libraries

• some select PCV functions depends on 3rd party libraries
• all libraries are bundled in extension: Python Wheels
• with two exceptions (see Known Issues) they are included without modification as downloaded from The Python Package Index (PyPI) via pip download command

Some libraries still have conflicts with other libraries (mainly on Windows platform) which may lead to Blender crash. PCV has automatic system to prevent that, PCV Preferences > Libraries > Resolve Library Conflicts Using Python Subprocess, it is enabled by default. This system runs such operation in another python process without Blender. Input data are saved to disk, separate python process is launched, data processed and written back to disk. Results are collected back to Blender and temporary files removed, slightly slower to run, but prevents freezes and crashes.

PCV is tested on macOS 15 Apple Silicon (arm64), Windows 10 (x64) and Ubuntu 24.04 (x64). macOS Intel (x64) is provided, but not tested.

Bundled Libraries

Following libraries are bundled and used by PCV. There are also wheels of their dependencies, for complete list, look into extension wheels directory.

Laspy

Laspy is a python library for reading, modifying and creating LAS LiDAR files.

License: BSD License

• https://github.com/laspy/laspy
• https://pypi.org/project/laspy/

lazrs

Python bindings for the laz-rs crate. Implementation or rather, translation of LAZ (laszip compression) format in Rust.

License: MIT

• https://github.com/laz-rs/laz-rs-python
• https://pypi.org/project/lazrs/

pye57

Python wrapper of LibE57Format to read and write .e57 point cloud files

License: MIT License (MIT)

• https://github.com/davidcaron/pye57
• https://pypi.org/project/pye57/

SciPy

SciPy (pronounced "Sigh Pie") is an open-source software for mathematics, science, and engineering. It includes modules for statistics, optimization, integration, linear algebra, Fourier transforms, signal and image processing, ODE solvers, and more.

License: BSD License

• https://scipy.org/
• https://github.com/scipy/scipy
• https://pypi.org/project/scipy/

Open3D

Open3D: A Modern Library for 3D Data Processing

License: MIT License (MIT)

• https://www.open3d.org/
• https://github.com/isl-org/Open3D
• https://pypi.org/project/open3d/

PyMeshLab

PyMeshLab is a Python library that interfaces to MeshLab, the popular open source application for editing and processing large 3D triangle meshes. Python bindings are generated using pybind11.

License: GPL3

• https://www.meshlab.net/
• https://github.com/cnr-isti-vclab/PyMeshLab
• https://pypi.org/project/pymeshlab/

psutil

Cross-platform lib for process and system monitoring in Python

License: BSD License (BSD-3-Clause)

• https://github.com/giampaolo/psutil
• https://pypi.org/project/psutil/

Known Issues

• pye57 wheel for macOS, Intel architecture (x64) is built from source because official wheel is not available at PyPI
• PyMeshLab wheel is not installed properly by Blender (Issue Report), bundled wheels are repacked by me to format Blender expects until Blender is fixed. Contents is the same, only two extra directories pymeshlab-2023.12.post2.data/purelib above actual module are removed and paths updated
• Open3D dependencies has problem installing on Windows because of path length limit (Issue Report), offending wheel is not included in PCV, so Open3D installation is not complete. Its gui functions may be broken, but PCV does not use any of that. Just keep that in mind if you plan to use Open3D in your own custom scripts. macOS and Linux platforms are unaffected by this issue, only Windows.