StereoCloud3D User Guide

StereoCloud3D is a Windows desktop application for stereoscopic restitution: it lets you view massive LiDAR / photogrammetric point clouds and digitize accurate 2D/3D CAD vector features directly on top of them, in true 3D stereo when you have the hardware for it.

Who this guide is for

This manual serves two audiences. Operators will find step-by-step workflows, keyboard shortcuts and reference tables. Decision makers / prospective customers can read the Overview and the feature chapters to understand what the product does and how it fits a survey, mapping or AEC pipeline.

2. Key concepts

3. System requirements

• Operating system: Windows 10 or Windows 11 (64-bit).
• GPU: an OpenGL-capable graphics card. A discrete GPU is strongly recommended for large clouds and stereo.
• Memory: 16 GB minimum; 32 GB or more for very large datasets.
• Disk: fast SSD; the converted tile index is stored alongside your project.
• Antivirus / Windows Defender: real-time scanning of thousands of tile files during cloud import can slow conversion dramatically. The installer offers to add recommended Defender exclusions (app folder + converter processes). For projects stored outside the install folder, also exclude your project root(s) in Windows Security → Virus & threat protection → Manage settings → Exclusions, or run configure-defender-exclusions.ps1 from the install directory with -ProjectRoots. Third-party antivirus products need equivalent exclusions manually.
• Stereo hardware (optional): a 3D-capable display or projector for side-by-side output (e.g. PluraView / VoxelSpace side-by-side, or PluraView triple with one eye per panel).
• 3D navigation (strongly recommended): a trackball used together with a normal mouse. Primary (best fit): Kensington Expert Mouse or Expert Trackball (USB 047D) — large ball, scroll ring, four buttons. Also supported: Logitech ERGO M575 (current thumb trackball), and legacy Wireless Trackball M570 / Trackman Marble (USB 046D, often refurbished/used). Ball = digitizing Z quota; ring/wheel = Z speed; mouse MMB + ball = cloud rotation; MMB drag = pan. See Trackball navigation.
• Internet: required at activation and periodically for license validation.

4. Activation & licensing

On first launch StereoCloud3D shows the Activation window (StereoCloud3D — Activation). Enter the license key supplied with your subscription and click Activate. Once activated, the key is remembered and the app opens straight to the Welcome screen on subsequent launches.

• Activate — validate the key online and bind this computer to the license.
• Quit — close the application without activating.

While running, the app re-checks the license periodically. If the license expires or is revoked (beyond any grace period) the application will notify you and close. See Managing your license for the status dialog and how to move a license to another computer.

Update notification. After activation the app checks (in the background) whether a newer version has been published. When one is available, an Update available panel shows the new version number together with a concise list of the additions and changes, and a Download… button that opens the download page. Choose Later to dismiss it — the notice reappears at the next launch until you update.

5. Welcome screen

When no project is open you see the Welcome screen. From here you can:

• New Project… — create a fresh project (see below).
• Open Project… — pick an existing project.
• Open Folder… — open a project by selecting its folder.
• Recent projects — a list with name, path and a short summary. Missing projects are shown in orange.

Each recent entry offers Open, Protect… / Password… (manage a project password) and Delete… / Remove from list. Password-protected projects carry a locked badge. Deleting offers the choice to permanently remove the project from disk or merely drop it from the recent list.

You can return to this screen at any time with File → Home / Welcome (you will be prompted to save unsaved changes first).

6. Projects

6.1 Creating a project

Choose File → New Project… (Ctrl+N). In the dialog:

• Enter a Project name.
• Pick a Destination folder (use Browse…). The target folder must be empty.
• Optionally tick Protect with password and provide an operator name, password and confirmation.

Click Create. The project starts with an empty CAD drawing; you add clouds and CAD data afterwards via import (see Importing data).

6.2 Password protection

A project password is a soft access gate: when enabled, opening the project requires the password and an operator name (recorded in the job report). You can set, change or remove a password from three places:

• New Project → the Protect with password option.
• File → Project Security… — Enable / Update / Remove (removing requires the current password).
• Welcome → Protect… on a recent project.

6.3 Saving

• Save (Ctrl+S) writes the project manifest and drawing.
• Save As… (Ctrl+Shift+S) writes a copy.
• The title bar shows the project name with a * when there are unsaved changes.
• Each explicit Save or Save As also creates a versioned CAD backup of the current master drawing before it is overwritten (see 6.5).

6.4 Autosave & crash recovery

Autosave is on by default at a 5-minute interval (configurable 1–240 minutes in the Inspector panel). Autosave writes to a sidecar file (*.autosave.vec) — it does not overwrite your master drawing until you explicitly save. If the app finds a newer sidecar when opening a project it offers to Recover or Discard the unsaved changes. When closing with unsaved edits you are asked to Save, Don't save or Cancel.

Two recovery levels. The autosave sidecar protects against crashes and unexpected shutdowns. The rotating backups created on Save protect against mistakes after you have already committed a good drawing to disk (see below).

6.5 CAD drawing backups & restore

Release 3.20 adds a second backup level for the native CAD drawing:

• Level 1 — Autosave sidecar (cad/drawing.autosave.vec): written periodically while you work; offered automatically on reopen after a crash.
• Level 2 — Versioned backups on save: every time you choose Save or Save As, StereoCloud3D copies the current master cad/drawing.vec into cad/backups/ as drawing_YYYYMMDD-HHMMSS.vec before overwriting the master. The ten most recent snapshots are kept; older ones are pruned automatically.

To reload an older drawing without hunting through folders, use File → Restore from backup… (Ctrl+Alt+R). The picker lists both autosave sidecars and timestamped backup versions (newest first), with file size and date. Choosing a backup reloads that .vec into the session and marks the project dirty until you save again — your current master file on disk is not touched until you explicitly save over it.

7. Importing data

7.1 Importing point clouds (LAS / LAZ)

Open the Project Manager (Ctrl+P) and choose Import cloud…. Select one or more .las / .laz files (multi-select is supported). Each file becomes its own cloud layer under cloud/<layer>/ inside the project.

StereoCloud3D converts every file into a streaming tile index with a background converter. While it runs, a progress dialog (Importing clouds) reports:

• Dataset — number of files and total size on disk (MB).
• Overall progress across all files (i / N files).
• Current file name, its point count (or “reading header…”), and the current phase.
• A per-file progress bar.

Import report

When conversion succeeds an Import report summarizes the result:

• Layers imported, Total points, Total source size (MB).
• Extent (local) — width × depth and height of the combined bounds.
• Attributes present — XYZ always, plus RGB and/or Intensity when available.
• A per-layer table: layer name, type (LAS/LAZ), points and size.

If conversion fails, a Cloud import failed dialog shows the error message together with the tail of the converter's output to help diagnose the problem.

Project Manager — Properties tab

Release 3.20 adds a Properties tab to the Project Manager (Ctrl+P). It summarizes the open project without opening folders in Explorer:

• Storage — project path, total size on disk, created/modified timestamps from the manifest.
• Point clouds — layer count (visible/total), indexed point count, tile count, LAS source count and points, cloud data size on disk.
• Imagery — layer count (visible/total) and imagery folder size.
• CAD — drawing file name, file size, entity count (when CAD is loaded), CAD folder size, number of versioned backups and autosave sidecar presence.

Statistics are cached for a few seconds so the panel stays responsive on large projects.

7.2 Adding an existing tile index

If you already have a converted tile_index.json, use Project → Add cloud tile index… to attach it without re-converting.

7.3 Importing CAD (DWG / DXF / VEC)

Use Project → Import CAD (DWG/DXF/VEC)… or CAD → Import DWG / DXF / VEC…. Imported geometry is converted into the project's native drawing. To send work back out, use CAD → Export drawing (DXF)….

7.4 Importing imagery / orthophotos

Release 3.18 adds a georeferenced imagery workflow for projects that need an orthophoto, raster background, or map image under the CAD/cloud view. Use Project Manager → Clouds / imagery → Import imagery… to select one or more raster files. The importer uses the bundled GDAL tools to convert the source to tiled GeoTIFF assets stored inside the project under imagery/layer_N/, plus an imagery_index.json manifest for streaming.

• Georeferenced placement — imagery is read from its world coordinates and presented in the WCS view below CAD vectors, so orthophotos and imported drawings can be checked together.
• Project-managed layers — each imagery import creates a project layer with a matching CAD layer entry. Showing/hiding the imagery layer keeps the CAD layer visibility synchronized.
• Runtime packaging — the installer includes the GDAL executables, runtime DLLs, GDAL data and PROJ data required by the imagery pipeline.
• Diagnostics — if conversion fails, StereoCloud3D shows a detailed failure report with the converter output tail, so missing georeference or unsupported raster formats can be identified quickly.

8. The workspace

The main window is organised around a central 3D viewport with a menu bar on top, optional toolbars, and movable floating panels.

8.0 Desktop chrome (3.25)

With a project open, the mono content band uses a fixed left-to-right chrome layout:

1. CAD Tools — docked Draw / Modify strip (left).
2. Scene Tree — project hierarchy (clouds, AOIs, imagery, DTM).
3. Zenith Overview — optional plan map (when enabled).
4. Mono viewport — cloud + CAD (centre).
5. Object Snap — docked snap toggles (right).

Drag the vertical splitters between docks to resize; widths are saved in settings. Busy overlays dim only the mono viewport so Tools / Scene Tree / Overview / OSnap stay usable.

8.0.1 Scene Tree

View → Scene Tree (shortcut in Keyboard Shortcuts) docks the scene graph beside the Tools strip. Nodes cover Project, CAD, Clouds, AOIs, Imagery, DTM and algorithm results. Use the visibility checkbox on each row to show/hide that segment. When you open a project, the tree expands fully so every folder is visible.

Context menus (right-click):

• Cloud — color mode and cloud-related actions.
• AOI — define/redraw rectangle, limit cloud streaming to the AOI, and Algorithms (Cleanup, Voxel, SOR) enabled according to the estimated point count (with downsample when over the process limit).

Selecting a defined AOI shows a short capability summary (estimated points, view vs process) at the bottom of the panel.

8.0.2 UI language (3.25.2)

The UI supports English, Italian, French, German and Spanish for menus, the Scene Tree, Welcome, Project Manager, Display setup, shortcuts, toolbars, and many panel/dialog titles. Open Inspector → Interface → Language:

• Auto (system) — follows the Windows UI language when it matches a supported code; otherwise English.
• Or pick a language explicitly; chrome updates immediately.

CAD Draw / Modify command names stay in English (CadDll). Some long dialog body text may still appear in English until later fill-in. The choice is saved in application settings.

8.1 Menus

8.2 Panels and dialogs

Most auxiliary windows are independent ImGui panels: they open as floating windows that you can drag by the title bar and resize freely (see 8.4 Arranging the workspace). At a clean startup only the Welcome screen is shown; Browser, Inspector, Command Line and the built-in toolbars start closed until you open them from the menus or shortcuts.

• Browser — project tree, navigation settings (including Kensington trackball), and quick links to Project Manager.
• Inspector — project & scene settings (navigation, magnifier, autosave, save drawing). Point-cloud color mode and classification filters live in Cloud Visualization.
• Command Line — type commands and read system feedback (see Command line).

Additional panels open from menus or shortcuts and remember their last position:

The status bar (stereo coordinatograph and cursor readout at the bottom of the main window) is not a floating panel; it is drawn as a fixed overlay on top of the viewport.

Some operations still use native Windows file dialogs (New / Open / Save / Import / Export). The license gate at first launch and a few confirmation prompts are modal dialogs.

8.3 Toolbars

Floating toolbars and property combo strips are toggled from View → Toolbars (all off by default until you enable them):

• CAD Draw — points, lines, polylines, text, and related draw commands.
• CAD Circle — circle variants (centre/radius, 2-point, 3-point, tangent…).
• CAD Arc — arc construction tools.
• CAD Dimension — linear, aligned, angular and other dimension commands.
• CAD Modify — move, copy, rotate, scale, trim, extend, and related edits.
• CAD Flow — workflow helpers (OK / Esc / Undo / Redo / Quote).
• Object Snap — running snaps, Cloud Z, AUTO-Z, GND-Z and the POLAR toggle.
• Display — cloud/CAD visibility, stereo layout cycle and related display toggles.
• Imagery — orthophoto on/off and opacity (when imagery is present).
• Cloud plane UCS — RANSAC plane UCS helper bar.
• Custom toolbar — your own floating bar of favourite actions.

View → Toolbars → Property bars… (Ctrl+Shift+Alt+T) opens the property-combo settings panel. By default the Layer combo strip can be enabled there: a compact current-layer picker alongside the floating bars. Optional combos (colour, linetype, lineweight, dimension style) can be turned on when you need them; full layer editing remains in Layer Manager (LA).

Upgrading from an older release that had a single CAD Tools bar: the first launch after update may enable all six CAD bars if you previously used the old combined toolbar.

View → Toolbars → Customize custom toolbar… is an editor where you add buttons from a catalog of app actions, panels and typed CAD commands. Each button has a label, a command string and an optional tooltip. Your custom toolbar is saved between sessions.

8.4 Arranging the workspace

Before you start digitizing, it is worth spending a few minutes exploring what the application offers and arranging the workspace to suit your workflow:

1. Skim the View, CAD, Draw, Modify, Snap, Cloud and Stereo menus to see available commands.
2. Open CAD → Keyboard Shortcuts… (Ctrl+K) to review managed shortcuts and rebind anything you use often.
3. Open View → Toolbars to enable CAD Draw / Circle / Arc / Dimension / Modify / Flow, Object Snap, Display, Imagery, and Property bars… for the Layer combo strip (plus any optional property combos you need).
4. Turn on the panels you want (Browser, Inspector, Command Line, Layer Manager, etc.) from View or their menu shortcuts, then drag each floating window to a comfortable position and size.
5. Optionally build a Custom toolbar (View → Toolbars → Customize custom toolbar…) with your favourite actions.

Panels and toolbars are floating only (there is no docking or tabbed dock regions): drag them by the title bar, resize from the edges, and close them with the × button. While the pointer is over a panel, toolbar, menu or dialog, the normal Windows cursor is shown and mouse clicks go to the UI — not to CAD pick/zoom/pan. Over the viewport (with no UI under the cursor), the CAD crosshair and navigation apply.

The application remembers your arrangement automatically when you exit. You can also save or reload it explicitly (see 8.5).

8.5 Saving and restoring layout

Workspace layout is stored in two places:

• settings.json — which panels and toolbars were open (uiPanels).
• imgui.ini — floating window positions and sizes.

On every normal exit the current layout is written to both files. To capture a layout mid-session without closing the application, use:

• View → Save workspace layout (Ctrl+Shift+Alt+W)

To reload the last saved layout from disk (for example after experimenting with window positions), use:

• View → Restore workspace layout (Ctrl+Shift+Alt+L)

Restore reapplies panel/toolbar visibility from settings.json and reloads window geometry from imgui.ini. Keyboard shortcut overrides and toolbar customizations also live in settings.json but are not changed by Restore unless you saved them together with the layout.

9.4 Object snaps

Open the Snap menu or the Object Snap toolbar to enable running snaps. A master Object Snap toggle turns them all on/off. Available modes:

EndpointMidpointCenter IntersectionNearestPoint PerpendicularTangentCloud Z

Cloud Z snaps a vertex's height to the point cloud at pick time — the key to fast, accurate restitution. Like the other running object snaps, it is applied when you click or confirm the next CAD point. When the cloud pick succeeds during drawing, the mono cursor shows a green ring and the sampled elevation as confirmation.

Z Anchor (Shift+Z) stores the elevation of the cloud point under the mono cursor and assigns that exact Z to following vertices until Shift+Z is pressed again. While active, AUTO-Z and Cloud Z object snap are suspended, a red anchor marks the sampled point, and the cursor shows only the locked numeric elevation. Use this for repeated points that must share one quota. (Release 3.19 and earlier used bare Z for anchor; upgrade users should reset keyboard shortcuts or rebind if an old Z binding still toggles anchor.)

9.5 Polar tracking

Polar tracking helps while drawing lines and polylines: when the next segment is near 0° or 90° relative to the previous segment, a dashed guide appears and the cursor magnetizes to that direction. This is separate from object snaps (perpendicular to an existing entity is a snap mode, not polar tracking).

• POLAR checkbox on the Object Snap toolbar, or Snap → Polar tracking.
• F8 — toggle polar tracking on/off (also PON on the command line).

Default: on, relative angles in 90° steps. Your choice is saved in settings between sessions. The legacy on-cursor polar tooltip is disabled (it used a missing font); the vector guides remain visible.

9.6 Trackball navigation (Kensington / Logitech)

StereoCloud3D supports professional trackballs for 3D cursor Z, view rotation, and quick actions. Recommended: Kensington Expert Mouse (wired) or Expert Trackball (wireless) — large ball, scroll ring, four buttons (USB 047D). Also supported: Logitech ERGO M575 (successor to the M570, still sold new), Wireless Trackball M570 and Trackman Marble (discontinued but widely available refurbished/used; USB 046D). Use any of these with a normal mouse for pan and CAD pick.

• Ball — raises or lowers the 3D cursor Z (the elevation quota used while digitizing). The on-screen pointer stays fixed so the view does not jitter.
• Scroll ring (Kensington) or wheel (Logitech) — changes the Z action speed (shown in the Inspector and trackball settings; no longer drawn on the stereo coordinatograph).
• Mouse MMB + ball — hold the middle button on your mouse (without dragging the mouse) and roll the trackball with the other hand. Rotates cloud and CAD live around the current G pivot (yaw/pitch), using the same native CAD/cloud orbit host as Shift+MMB.
• Alt + ball — same rotation if you prefer a keyboard modifier.
• Hardware buttons — Kensington: four assignable buttons (defaults below). Logitech thumb models (M570/M575): left/right map to the bottom-left / bottom-right slots. Trackman Marble: four buttons (same assignment grid).

Open Browser → Navigation → Trackball settings… to enable the device (trackball support is off at startup until you turn it on here — improves stability on some PCs), invert ball/ring sense, reset the speed multiplier, and assign buttons. Default assignments:

• Top-left — pan the view to the cursor XY (one click; recenters while keeping the world point under the cursor).
• Top-right — snap Z to the cloud surface under the cursor.
• Bottom-left — toggle cloud visibility.
• Bottom-right — toggle CAD visibility.

Preferences are saved in settings.json (kensingtonTrackballEnabled, speed, invert, and the four button assignments).

9.7 Input recovery & view realignment

Release 3.20 adds recovery commands for sessions where the mono cursor disappears, navigation keys (T, Z, G) stop responding, or pan/orbit feels stuck (often after Alt+Tab or focus loss during MMB drag).

• Unlock input (Ctrl+Shift+R) — View → Unlock input or the Recover input shortcut. Ends active pan and orbit drags, cancels UCS-orient preview and orbit-pivot sessions, closes escapable modals (wizard, new-project dialog, etc.), invalidates cursor caches and reclaims keyboard focus on the main window. Does not change your current orientation, zoom or framing.
• Restore view and alignment — View menu only (no default shortcut; assign in Keyboard Shortcuts if needed). Runs Sblocca input then the same full zenith reframe as T (Top / WCS): resets oblique orient to R=I, re-syncs cloud, CAD and stereo camera. Use when cloud and CAD have drifted apart after a partial orbit or pan — equivalent to a controlled T after unlocking input.

If you lose window focus while panning (MMB) or orbiting (G drag), StereoCloud3D automatically ends the stuck drag when focus returns — without resetting the view.

10. Cloud visualization

Open Cloud → Cloud Visualization… (Ctrl+Shift+L) for point color mode, point size and related display options. Settings are saved with the project (and in app settings where applicable).

Color modes include RGB, elevation, intensity and Classification. In Classification mode an ASPRS legend lists standard LAS classes; use the per-class checkboxes to show or hide points (for example ground only, or buildings without vegetation). Classes with no points in the loaded tiles remain listed but contribute nothing until classified data is present.

10.1 Color modes

Modes whose attribute is missing in the data are shown as unavailable.

10.2 Elevation range (automatic, spike-resistant)

Elevation coloring needs a min/max height. Real clouds often contain a few spikes (a stray point far above or below the surface) that would otherwise wash out the ramp. StereoCloud3D therefore computes a robust range from the 2nd–98th percentile of the height distribution, so the colors span the meaningful terrain rather than the outliers.

10.3 Point size & cache

• Point size — on-screen size of each point (1–64).
• Cache tiles — how many tiles stay resident in memory (default 32). Larger values reduce re-loading at the cost of memory.

10.4 Surfels and Eye-Dome Lighting

The Cloud → Performance menu contains two experimental visual enhancers for dense point-cloud interpretation:

• Pro surfel visual overlay draws circular GL splats on top of the native VTK points. It improves apparent surface continuity without changing CAD snapping, cloud picking or the underlying tile data.
• Eye-Dome Lighting (experimental) applies a depth-aware post-process to the cloud texture. It darkens local depth discontinuities so edges, steps, cavities and façade details read more clearly even when the cloud has no normals.

EDL is visual-only. It is applied per cloud framebuffer (mono and each stereo eye) before CAD vectors are composited, so CAD lines remain crisp and are not shaded. The controls are:

10.1 Zenith Overview

View → Zenith Overview (Ctrl+Shift+O) docks a WCS plan panel on the left of the mono viewport, separated by a draggable vertical splitter (the split ratio is remembered between sessions). It always shows CAD in world coordinates (plan / zenith), preferring georeferenced imagery under the drawing when available. The main mono viewport keeps focus for digitizing and can remain oblique while the overview stays top-down.

• Fixed crosshair, moving map — a crosshair stays fixed at the centre of the panel while the imagery and CAD map follow the live mono cursor; the zoom matches the mono view.
• Live entities — entities you draw in the mono CAD appear in the overview: its plan drawing is refreshed from a snapshot of the live drawing whenever the entity count changes, without disturbing the mono view.
• Imagery — while the overview is open, WCS imagery continues streaming even if the mono view is oblique, and tiles fill the overview extent.
• DTM layer (3.24) — after Cloud → Build ground DTM (CSF)…, enable the DTM checkbox in the Overview header (or Ctrl+Alt+D) to show a ground hillshade between imagery and CAD. Opacity is adjustable next to the checkbox.

Use the overview as a situational map while digitizing walls or roofs in an oriented UCS. Drag the splitter to resize the panel.

10.2 GND-Z and ground DTM

GND-Z is a modifier of AUTO-Z: turn AUTO-Z on first (Ctrl+Shift+Z), then enable GND-Z from the Snap or Cloud menu, the Object Snap toolbar, or Ctrl+Shift+Alt+G. Near zenith (view looking down), elevation prefers ASPRS ground-like classes (2 Ground, 8 Model key-point, 11 Road surface) when present in the neighbourhood; otherwise the lowest Z in about 1 m XY. Steep / façade views keep the normal RANSAC plane∩ray path.

Build ground DTM (CSF) (Cloud menu or Ctrl+Alt+B) runs a Cloth Simulation Filter on the Cloud AOI (preferred) or the current view extents. A progress dialog shows extract and CSF stages; Cancel discards the run. The resulting height raster is kept for the session: when GND-Z + AUTO-Z are on and the cursor is inside DTM coverage, elevation samples the raster (bilinear) instead of a live neighbourhood query. Clear the DTM from the Cloud menu when finished, or close the project.

11. Cloud Performance

For very large clouds you can trade visual crispness against navigation smoothness with a single setting: Cloud → Performance. The choice is global and remembered between sessions. While the camera is moving, the cloud is drawn at a coarser level of detail so panning and zooming stay fluid; a fraction of a second after you stop, one crisp full-resolution pass is rendered. The settled LOD is intentionally non-linear: close to the subject it becomes dense quickly for restitution, while distant overviews are kept much coarser because they are navigation views, not drawing views.

The Cloud menu also displays the active preset's live values (visible tiles per layer and motion level-of-detail bias) and current cache statistics (resident tiles, cache hits/misses).

Visual quality options in the same menu are independent from LOD. The surfel overlay increases point coverage, while Eye-Dome Lighting adds depth cues on the already rendered cloud texture. Both are saved in global settings and can be toggled without changing project geometry, CAD entities or pick behavior.

12. Stereoscopic viewing

The Stereo menu controls depth presentation. Stereo settings are saved with the project.

12.1 Quick start

1. Open a project with cloud (and CAD if needed).
2. Stereo → Stereo (or toolbar Stereo, Ctrl+Shift+Alt+S).
3. Stereo → Display layout — choose Mono, Stereo SBS (dual monitor), or PluraView (triple monitor), or cycle with Ctrl+Shift+Alt+H / toolbar Mono / SBS / PV.
4. Adjust Stereo → Adjustments → Depth & CAD quality if depth looks flat or lines too thin.

12.2 Menu layout

12.3 Display layouts

Monitors are labelled Display 1, Display 2, Display 3 in the UI — the same numbers Windows shows when you click Identify in Display settings.

PluraView triple monitor setup

With three monitors in Win+P Extend, choose display layout PluraView (triple monitor) (View → Stereo → Display layout, or Display setup wizard). Windows primary (Display 1) carries the UI and mono preview; each PluraView stereo panel gets one eye at full resolution.

1. Default — dual-window per eye: StereoCloud3D opens a borderless GL window on the left-eye monitor (e.g. Display 2) and another on the right-eye monitor (e.g. Display 3). No NVIDIA 3D Stereo driver setup required. Recommended first on RTX Quadro + PluraView.
2. Optional — quad-buffer passive: enable View → Stereo → Quad-buffer passive (NVIDIA clone). One stereo GL window uses OpenGL quad-buffer (BACK_LEFT / BACK_RIGHT). Requires NVIDIA Control Panel → 3D Stereo → On and passive stereo clone on the two PluraView outputs. The menu shows whether quad-buffer GL is available on the external window.
3. Assign eye monitors — use Display setup or Assign eye monitors… under the PluraView submenu when three displays are connected.

12.4 Adjustments & cursor

• Swap left / right (pseudoscopy) — Ctrl+Shift+Alt+R or menu item under Adjustments.
• Stereo depth — Adjustments → Depth & CAD quality: normalized 0–1 slider 0 = flat, 1 = the maximum recommended relief. The whole travel is usable, so fine adjustments are easy. The value is applied when the slider is released (each change re-renders both eyes).

Stereo cursor & coordinatograph

In stereo the pointer is drawn as a dedicated reticle (ring or filled disc) that is perfectly stable and responds immediately to motion and elevation changes. It is pre-squeezed anamorphically, so through the stereo display it reads as a perfect circle, fused at the cursor's elevation. Default: filled red disc, 3 px. Size (0–10 px), thickness, shape (ring vs disc) and color are configured in Settings → Cursor → Stereo reticle. The standard CAD cursor (cross + pickbox) remains on the 2D editing view.

A coordinatograph (X, Y, Z readout) can be shown on the stereo output, per eye and anamorphic-corrected. The Z value is drawn at twice the X/Y size to ease setting the elevation. Enable it and set size/color in Settings → Cursor → Stereo coordinates. The readout uses the same floating-mark 3D point as the mono status bar and stereo reticle (3.20). During idle AUTO-Z, the readout is frozen on the sampled cloud point until the mouse really moves, avoiding planimetric jitter on stereoscopic panels.

12.5 Dual monitor (UI + external 3D panel)

Stereo SBS is routed to the secondary monitor; the primary display (Display 1) carries menus and a mono viewport. The recommended field setup is a laptop or FlexView (primary) plus a dedicated 3D panel (secondary). With layout Stereo SBS, StereoCloud3D enables the external window automatically when two displays are connected (Win+P Extend).

Windows display setup (required once)

Configure Windows before enabling dual-monitor mode in StereoCloud3D. The steps below apply to Windows 10 and Windows 11.

1. Extend the desktop — press Win+P (or Win+K on some laptops) and choose Extend / Estendi. Never Duplicate / Duplica: mirroring sends the same image to both screens and breaks the dual-window workflow.
2. Open display settings — Settings → System → Display (or right-click the desktop → Display settings).
3. Identify the monitors — click Identify. Windows shows a large number on each physical screen. Note which number is the laptop/FlexView and which is the 3D panel.
4. Arrange the monitor icons — drag the rectangles so their relative positions match the real desk layout (where you look left/right/up/down). Typical VoxelSpace setup: 3D panel on the left, laptop on the right. If your desk is different, match the icons to reality; you can pick the stereo monitor manually in StereoCloud3D (see below).
5. Set the main display — click the laptop / FlexView icon and enable Make this my main display / Rendi principale. The taskbar and StereoCloud3D UI should stay on this screen. If Windows primary is the 3D panel, the app still runs but logs a hint to swap primary back to the laptop.
6. Resolution — select each monitor and set its native resolution (or the project standard, e.g. 1280×720). Different resolutions per monitor are supported; the 3D view is scaled to the external panel automatically.
7. Scale (DPI) — under Scale & layout, prefer 100 % on the 3D panel when possible. High scaling (125 %, 150 %) on one monitor only can shift window edges slightly; if the stereo window does not fill the panel, check this setting.
8. 3D panel hardware mode — on PluraView / VoxelSpace, turn 3D ON on the monitor (hardware side-by-side). StereoCloud3D sends a side-by-side frame; the panel must be in 3D mode for depth to fuse correctly.

StereoCloud3D menu

• Stereo view mode ON.
• Display layout = Stereo SBS (dual monitor) for VoxelSpace / dual-panel setups, or PluraView (triple monitor) when three displays are connected.
• Dual monitor → 3D output monitor — which physical display gets the 3D-only window:
  • Auto (leftmost) — default for VoxelSpace-left / laptop-right layouts.
  • Auto (rightmost) — use when the 3D panel is the rightmost screen.
  • 0: … / 1: … — pick a specific monitor by name if auto-detection does not match your desk (listed in the same submenu).

Verify in the Command Line log

When dual-monitor mode starts, the Command Line panel prints a short Windows checklist and a line per monitor, for example:

Monitor 0: VoxelSpace @ (0,0) 1280x720 [stereo] (Win primary)
Monitor 1: FlexView @ (1280,0) 1920x1080 [UI]

Check that one monitor is tagged [UI] (your editing screen) and one [stereo] (the 3D panel). Tags may combine if misconfigured. Use Stereo → Dual monitor → 3D output monitor to correct the assignment without changing Windows layout.

For PluraView workstations, use View → Stereo → Verify PluraView setup... to audit the saved monitor IDs and the current external eye-window placement before a digitizing session.

Troubleshooting

12.6 Oblique views on oriented surfaces

Oblique views are the workflow for digitizing CAD features on surfaces that are not horizontal plan views: vertical façades, bridge abutments and pier faces, dam fronts, embankment slopes, roof pitches, retaining walls, and any other plane that cuts through a detailed 3D point cloud. Instead of forcing everything into a top-down WCS view — where steep geometry collapses into a thin line and depth is hard to judge — you tilt the view onto the real surface with pivot orbit and trackball rotation, then draw in true stereoscopic 3D with the same precision you already use on cartographic terrain.

Two view modes

Entities are always stored in World Coordinates (WCS) in the project file. An oblique view only changes how you look and digitize: the cloud and the CAD scene are tilted together to your work plane, and every click is converted back to WCS automatically.

Orienting the view

Load a cloud first, then orient the view from the cloud surface:

• Press G over the cloud to pick the pivot on the structure.
• Use Shift+MMB drag for yaw/pitch, or MMB + trackball ball for responsive hands-on rotation without dragging the mouse.
• The cloud and CAD scene rotate together during the gesture, so what you see is always what you will digitize.

Return to the ordinary plan at any time with View → Top / WCS or T: this restores the top-down WCS view and fits the extents.

12.7 UCS from cloud plane (RANSAC)

For façades and other large planar surfaces, you can fit the wall plane directly from the point cloud and lock an oblique UCS in one step — faster and more accurate than manual orientation tuning alone.

• Open View → UCS from cloud plane… or press Ctrl+Shift+U (with a cloud loaded).
• Pick a point on the face, set R (capture radius in metres) for the local RANSAC sample, then Apply. R affects only the plane fit, not what you see after clipping.
• The view aligns to the fitted plane: X horizontal on the wall, Z toward the camera.
• Clip (metres) controls a thin slab along the plane normal: only points on the visible wall within that thickness remain. The lateral extent follows the viewport (everything on screen on that face), not the RANSAC radius.
• Reset clip shows the full cloud again while keeping the oblique UCS.

Working on the oriented plane

Once the view is tilted onto the surface:

• The camera looks along the surface normal, so the wall/roof fills the viewport instead of collapsing into a line.
• The stereo cursor fuses at the elevation you set; parallax zero is at the cursor depth so entities sit on the surface you see.
• Mouse wheel (without modifiers) zooms the view. With Shift or Ctrl held, the wheel moves the cursor in depth — along the line of sight — which is the primary way to “lift” the cursor onto a façade or roof before placing a vertex.
• Cloud snap (Z) searches through the point under the cursor, so the picked elevation matches the cloud surface on that oriented plane.
• The coordinatograph shows the live WCS (X Y Z) coordinate of the cursor for export or reporting.
• A orientation triad (WCS axes) in the corner of the stereo viewport helps you stay oriented on oblique views.

Recommended workflow (façade / structure example)

1. Import the TLS or aerial cloud and open the project in Stereo (SBS on a 3D panel or PluraView triple for full-resolution eyes).
2. Pan/zoom to the structure; drag the horizontal slider to face the façade and the vertical slider to tilt the view onto the wall (or use the trackball).
3. Snap the cursor onto the cloud (Z), fine-tune depth with the wheel + Shift/Ctrl, then start a polyline or line macro and digitize the feature in stereo along the surface.
4. Press T (Top / WCS) to return to plan for spot heights or map-wide editing; your 3D vectors remain in WCS.

Typical applications

13. CAD digitizing

The Draw and Modify menus (and the CAD Draw / CAD Modify toolbars) provide a familiar CAD command set. Combine them with object snaps and the cursor-Z controls to place geometry accurately on the cloud surface.

13.1 Drawing tools

13.2 Modifying entities

The Modify menu provides Move, Copy, Rotate, Scale, Mirror, Offset, Trim, Extend, Fillet, Stretch, Join (merge contiguous lines/arcs into one polyline), Explode and Erase, plus Undo (Ctrl+Z), Redo (Ctrl+Y) and Cancel current (Esc).

13.3 Entity properties

Open the Entity Properties panel from CAD → Entity Properties…, the Ctrl+1 shortcut, the PROPS command, or by right-clicking an entity. The panel follows your selection and lets you inspect and edit attributes such as layer and color. For supported geometry it also lists the entity vertices so you can verify coordinates without editing the drawing.

For a visual check, enable View → Entity vertices or press Ctrl+Shift+Alt+.. StereoCloud3D draws cyan, read-only markers on CAD line, polyline and point vertices; the overlay is for cartographic inspection and does not write to the DWG.

13.4 Layers

• Layer Manager (CAD → Layer Manager…, command LA) — create layers, set color and visibility, and lock a layer to protect its entities from selection/editing. Click a layer’s color swatch to open the RGB color picker for a custom color (the ACI index is updated automatically; you can still type an ACI number directly).
• Layer Order (command LAO) — control the draw order of layers so important features render on top.

13.5 Entity groups

Group any set of entities — regardless of their layers — so you can hide or lock them together. Select entities, then Group selection (Ctrl+G). Manage groups in the Entity Groups panel (Ctrl+Shift+G), where each group has Hide and Lock toggles, a Select action, and a delete button. Use Ungroup selection to dissolve a group.

14. Feature macros (rapid coding)

Feature macros bind a single key to “select a construction layer and start drawing a chosen entity type” — the fastest way to digitize themed features. Manage them in CAD → Macro Commands…: add new macros, rebind keys (press Esc to cancel a rebind), and Restore defaults. Macros are saved between sessions.

The built-in starter macros:

15. Spot Height Plan (piano quotato)

This tool seeds a regular grid of points over an area and reads each point's elevation from the cloud, producing a finished spot-height plan. Open it from Tools → Spot Height Plan…, the toolbar Quote button, Ctrl+Shift+H, or the command SH.

15.1 Define the boundary

Click Draw boundary and pick vertices in the viewport; right-click to close the boundary (at least 3 vertices). Use Undo last or Clear as needed, then Done. You can Redraw at any time.

15.2 Grid & seed

• Link X/Y step — keep the X and Y spacing equal (default), or set Step X and Step Y independently.
• Seed — the grid starts from the boundary centroid by default; use Pick seed to set a custom origin point (and Reset seed to revert).

15.3 Elevation from the cloud

• Z method — Nearest point, Lowest (ground), or IDW average.
• Interpolate holes — where there is no cloud beneath a grid node, estimate its height from neighbours instead of leaving a gap.
• Remove spikes — replace anomalous heights (e.g. a power cable over a road) with an interpolated value; set the spike threshold in metres.

15.4 Symbol & layer

• Marker — Dot, Cross, Circle or Square.
• Auto size — when on, marker size and quote text height are set to 0.1 × step; otherwise set them explicitly.
• Decimals — precision of the elevation label (0–6).
• Use custom block — draw your own block at each point instead of the built-in marker.
• Layer and ACI color — the construction layer (default Spot Heights, color 7).

15.5 Seed, verify in stereo, confirm

1. Seed points — a progress dialog samples the grid from the cloud and can be cancelled.
2. Preview — seeded points are shown temporarily, color-coded: cloud-derived, interpolated, spike-corrected. Click a point to delete or restore it. This is where stereo verification pays off — suspicious points are easy to spot in 3D.
3. Confirm & draw — the verified points are drawn as final geometry on the construction layer. Or Re-seed / Cancel.

All Spot Height settings persist between sessions.

15.6 Cloud Cleanup

Cloud → Cloud Cleanup… hides temporary cloud clutter near planar surfaces, for example vegetation or objects in front of a wall. Visually check the preview volume before applying hide.

1. Pick plane point — click a representative point on the wall or planar surface. StereoCloud3D fits a local RANSAC plane and orients the view front-on to that plane.
2. Draw boundary — left-click the cleanup contour on the plane. From three vertices onward the polyline closes automatically; use Undo / Clear if needed.
3. Set distance range — Minimum distance from plane protects the wall itself; Maximum distance from plane reaches toward the camera, up to 100 m.
4. Preview — points that would be hidden are overdrawn in orange. Adjust the boundary or distances until only the intended clutter is highlighted.
5. Apply hide — the selected points are assigned to the temporary hidden cleanup layer. Clear hidden restores all cleanup-hidden points.

15.7 View Polygon Cloud Cleanup

Cloud → View Polygon Cleanup… (Ctrl+Shift+J) hides cloud points inside a closed boundary drawn in the current view. Unlike plane-based Cloud Cleanup, no RANSAC wall fit is required: the tool uses the oriented view frustum and a polygon you trace on screen.

1. Open the panel from Cloud or press Ctrl+Shift+J.
2. Draw boundary — left-click vertices on the cloud in the main viewport; the polyline closes when you have at least three points.
3. Preview — points inside the extruded volume are highlighted before anything is hidden.
4. Apply hide — matching points move to the temporary hidden cleanup layer. Clear hidden restores them.

Use this for quick clutter removal in the current oblique or zenith view when a planar wall fit is not needed.

15.8 Cloud AOI

Cloud → Cloud AOI… (Ctrl+Shift+A) limits streaming to an XY area of interest so only tiles inside the rectangle are loaded. Draw the rectangle by pressing on a cloud point and dragging to the opposite corner; the four overlay vertices drape onto the cloud surface. Enable / disable the filter or clear the AOI from the panel. The AOI is stored in the project manifest.

16. 3D Inspector window

The internal 3D Inspector renderer (Inspector3DView) remains in the codebase for vector/scene previews, but the floating View → 3D Inspector window is not available in the current release. (Ctrl+Shift+I now toggles imagery underlays.) Use the main viewport, trackball orbit, and oblique stereo views for oriented inspection instead.

17. UI magnifier (loupe)

Because some menu text is small, an optional loupe magnifies the area under the pointer while it hovers the user interface. Toggle it with View → UI magnifier or Ctrl+Shift+M, and tune it in the Inspector:

• Zoom factor — 1.5× to 6× (default 2×).
• Lens size — 80 to 600 px (default 220).

18. Keyboard shortcuts

Shortcuts are fully customizable in CAD → Keyboard Shortcuts…, where you can rebind any managed command, check for conflicts, and Reset all to defaults. The panel also lists the typed CAD commands for reference. Default bindings:

In addition, the default feature macros (P, B, C, Shift+G, V, D, W, R, H, S, X, L, A, O, N) fire when no managed command is active. Managed shortcuts always take precedence over macros.

19. Command line

The Command Line panel accepts typed commands and shows operation results. Type HELP (or ?) to list the available verbs. Useful application verbs include:

NEWOPENSAVE SAVEASIMPORTEXPORT FITTOPPM SH / QUOTEPROPSGROUP GROUPSLA (Layer)LAO (Layer Order) CLEAR / CLS

All standard CAD drawing and editing commands can also be typed (e.g. LINE, PLINE, CIRCLE, MOVE, JOIN, TRIM, REGEN). Type HELP for the complete list with aliases.

20. Job report

Open File → Job Report… for a per-project production summary. It records:

• Operator name, project name, created / modified dates.
• Worked time — accumulated while the window is focused (short gaps ignored).
• Points used — total across imported sources.
• Entities generated — current CAD entity count.
• Stereo mode (Mono, or Stereo with its output format).
• Cloud and vector dataset sizes.
• Whether the project is password-protected.

Use Export report… (text file) or Copy to clipboard to share it. You can also set or update the project password from here.

21. Settings & files

Global preferences are stored per user at:

%APPDATA%\StereoCloud3D\settings.json

Floating panel and toolbar window geometry (positions and sizes) is stored separately in:

%APPDATA%\StereoCloud3D\imgui.ini

settings.json includes recent projects, window placement, keyboard bindings, which panels and toolbars were open (uiPanels), wheel/cursor-Z steps, autosave options, UI scale (0.75× to 2.0× for menus, panels and toolbars), magnifier settings, object-snap state, the Cloud Performance preset, surfel/EDL visual options, Spot Height defaults, feature macros, the custom toolbar, combobox-toolbar visibility flags, and Kensington trackball options (enable, invert, Z speed, button assignments). The remembered license key lives next to it as license_key.txt. Use View → Save workspace layout to write uiPanels and imgui.ini immediately without exiting.

Project-specific data (clouds, drawing, stereo, visualization, security and the job report) is stored inside the project folder's manifest, so projects are portable.

22. Managing your license

22.1 License status

Open Help → License Status… to see your status, license type, expiry and estimated remaining time, the enabled features, this device's fingerprint, the list of activated devices, and the server connection state.

22.2 Moving to another computer

A license is bound to a fixed number of devices. To free a seat — for example when you replace or reinstall a machine — use Deactivate this device… in the License Status dialog. After you confirm, this computer is removed from the license and the application closes; you can then activate the freed seat on the new machine.

22.3 Device fingerprint

Each activation binds your license to a device fingerprint computed from stable hardware identifiers: the Windows install ID (MachineGuid), the system volume serial, and a CPU signature. Renaming the computer or signing in under a different Windows account on the same machine does not change the fingerprint.

Reinstalling Windows, replacing the system drive, or upgrading from an older build that used a different fingerprint formula may register as a new device. If you hit the device limit, use Deactivate this device on a machine you no longer use, or ask your administrator to remove the stale entry from the license. Then activate again on the current PC.

The fingerprint shown in Help → License Status… is useful when contacting support or your license administrator.

23. Cloud Batch Converter

Tools → Cloud Batch Converter... (Ctrl+Shift+Alt+N) opens a standalone utility installed next to StereoCloud3D (CloudBatchConverter.exe). Use it to convert one or many .las / .laz files into streaming tile indexes without blocking your main workstation session. This is the recommended path when you receive several large surveys and want to prepare tile indexes before opening a project, or when conversion would take long enough to interrupt digitizing.

Why use it

• Productivity — queue several large surveys overnight or while you digitize in StereoCloud3D; conversion runs in its own process.
• Very large files — the same streaming converter as in-project import handles multi-GB LAZ and billion-point LAS; progress is shown per file.
• Flexible output — choose a base output folder; each source becomes <output>/<name>/tile_index.json ready for Project Manager → Clouds → Add tile index....

Converter options

• Output folder — each source file becomes <output>/<name>/tile_index.json.
• Queue — add files with the picker or drag from Explorer; jobs run one at a time.
• Progress — per-file status, log tail on failure (CRS, corrupt LAS, disk space).
• Attach to project — use Project Manager → Clouds → Add tile index... or copy the folder into your project’s cloud/ tree.

Only one Batch Converter window runs at a time. Launching again from the menu forwards new files to the existing window.

Cancel a running job or clear completed entries from the queue list. Failed jobs show the converter log tail so you can diagnose CRS, corrupt LAS, or disk-space issues.

24. Ask StereoCloud3D (AI help)

Help → Ask StereoCloud3D (AI)... (Ctrl+Shift+/) opens the built-in help assistant included with your license.

What it does

• StereoCloud3D workflows — menus, shortcuts, import, stereo setup, licensing, and other topics covered in this User Guide.
• Geomatics & remote sensing — LiDAR, photogrammetry, GNSS/RTK, cartography, UAV mapping, DTM/DSM, accuracy, point clouds, and related concepts (curated reference library).

Powered by OpenAI

When your license is active and the help service has OpenAI enabled, answers are synthesized by OpenAI GPT-4o-mini using excerpts from this User Guide and the geomatics reference. The chat shows a green [OpenAI GPT-4o-mini] label on those answers.

You may ask in any language (German, Italian, French, etc.). Release 3.20 instructs the server to answer in the same language as your question (not only the Windows UI locale). StereoCloud3D menu paths in answers stay in English (e.g. Help → User Guide). Windows UI language is still sent as a hint when available.

Privacy. Only your question text and app version are sent to the help service. Project files, point clouds, CAD geometry, and screen captures are never uploaded.

A daily quota per license session applies (typically 100 questions; shown in the panel when online).

Offline fallback

If the help server is unreachable, the app searches the local copy of this User Guide and a built-in domain glossary. Answers are labelled Offline or Geomatics reference in the chat.

Example questions: What is LiDAR?, How do I import a LAS file?, What is the difference between DTM and DSM?, How do I set up Side-by-Side stereo?

Developer offline mode

Set environment variable SC3D_HELP_AI_LOCAL=1 to force offline-only answers (no server round-trip). The marker file .sc3d_local_dev skips the consent screen but still uses the licensed server when available.

25. Troubleshooting

26. Glossary