Still new to frost, I’ve searched through the documentation but I’m not seeing anything explaining how to access/configure extra data channels in a PRT file. I’m coming at Frost from not having Krakatoa, so I think there may be some items that I just don’t quite understand due to not using PRT through Krakatoa first. A couple of the tutorials I was skimming mentioned some krakatoa modifiers which I obviously don’t have.
What I’m trying to figure out how to do / if it’s possible, is to use the intensity or rgb channel from a lidar based .pts file to color a Frost generated mesh. If I try to inspect the PRT that is generated from the PTS, there is a “Data1” channel that shows up if I look at it via text, that looks like it would be from the Channel Definition section according to the PRT Format specification.
What I’m not seeing though is any way to apply that data in Frost. Do I have to get Krakatoa to do this? For whatever reason I had been under the impression I’d be able to do it with frost alone…
Thinkbox gives your the access your need completely unfluttered and free, just download the Krakatoa demo, in demo mode you have complete access to the prt/kcm Workflow (and actually the new magma mod when 2.0 comes
I believe frost comes with a utility to convert .pts to .prt. Do that and load the resulting .prt into a prt loader. Add a default Kcm (which happens to be set to color by default) and you should be good. This color is stored in the vertex color channel.
As Johnny mentioned, and as explained in several of the Frost tutorials, the channel workflows in Frost are available at no cost via the Evaluation (demo) version of Krakatoa. The only limitations of Krakatoa are a watermark when rendering, no network rendering support and a few extra PFlow operators which are disabled (fast collision, geometry test and geometry query). The rest of the system is fully operational. We strongly advise to add this free Krakatoa version to your Frost arsenal to get the best results.
Aha, I was kind of wondering if using the demo would be part of the expected workflow for some of that. I suppose I’m too used to lesser-companies that bring down the “not to be used for commercial work” hammer on demos or something. Sorry I missed that in the docs somewhere. I’ll definitely grab the krakatoa demo and see what possibilities open up for me, thanks!
Lastly, Oatz, the PTS is just a list of xyz and then the extra channel for intensity is just another column of numbers, or in the case of full rgb then it’d be three more floats. A couple of the lines in the PTS where it’s xyzi are as such:
1647678.09 83368.36 78.49 1
1647677.63 83368.83 78.73 1
1647677.5 83369.44 78.87 6
1647677.17 83370 79.05 1
I bet I can probably figure it out once I grab Krakatoa and use the other tools mentioned in the above post though, thanks!
Once the file is loaded in Frost and converted to PRT, remove it again from the Frost and load it using a Krakatoa PRT Loader. Then open the Krakatoa Particle Data Viewer (both found in the Krakatoa menu in the Max Main Menu) and look at the available channels. You will have to load the second channel by its name in MagmaFlow, divide by 255 (or whatever the largest number is) to convert it to 0-1 range, then convert using ToVector operator to a color and output as Color. You should see the colors on the particles in the viewport. You can also freely scale and rotate the PRT Loader to adjust the size of the cloud. Now pick the PRT Loader in the Frost object and enable “Vertex Color Display” in the Object Properties and check “Shaded” - Frost will show the same colors as PRT Loader. Assign a Material with a Vertex Color Map in the Diffuse Slot to the Frost and you will be able to also render these colors…
I’m so glad you’re on the Frost team Bobo. That’s awesome, step by step exactly what I needed, wouldn’t have figured that out for a couple more days at least without that. Now I’ve got exactly what I need already in my viewport. Awesome, thank you thank you!!
That’s awesome, step by step exactly what I needed, wouldn’t have figured that out for a couple more days at least without that. Now I’ve got exactly what I need already in my viewport. Awesome, thank you thank you!!