.PTS

Introduction

PTS is a plain text point cloud format associated with Leica Geosystems’ laser scanning software, Cyclone. Its simplicity made it a common export from scanners and a common import in survey, CAD and visualisation programs. Each point is a line of numbers, usually a position, an intensity and a colour.

Being text, PTS files are large and slow to read for big scans, and they carry no information about the scanner’s position or the coordinate system. Binary formats such as E57 and LAS are better for large or shared data.

Structure

A PTS file starts with a line giving the number of points. Each following line is one point, with values separated by spaces: x y z, then usually an intensity, then red, green and blue from 0 to 255. Some files have only the three coordinates, or coordinates and intensity. A file may hold several scans one after another, each starting with its own count line. There is no formal specification, so readers usually guess the columns from the number of values on a line.

3
1.204 0.551 2.010 -1024 128 120 110
1.206 0.553 2.011 -980 131 122 112
1.209 0.552 2.013 -1012 129 121 111

Also used for

• Pro Tools session (versions 5 and 6) .pts

Links