Cloud Slice (point-cloud slabs to linework) (VDCCLOUDSLICE)

Slabs to linework: slice a LAS file at elevations, at heights above a TIN, or along a polyline / alignment; the points in each slab become polylines on a layer per slice. Every extraction number is in the dialog.

Elevation slab Height-above-TIN slab Extracted linework

What it does

Slices: elevations (list or 100-110 step 2), heights above a TIN, along a picked polyline or an alignment (vertical sections).
Extraction: grid bin → components → RANSAC straight segments → Douglas-Peucker curves → endpoint join; every number editable, every step unit-tested.
Output: 2D or 3D polylines, a layer per slice, Replace / Clear per source file.

Watch for

It traces what the points show, cars, people and vegetation in the slab included. Review the draft.
No points in the window = the cloud is not in the drawing's coordinates.
TIN and alignment modes need Civil 3D; plain AutoCAD gets elevation and polyline slices.

Dialog

Settings file: %APPDATA%\VDC\CloudSlice\settings.json

When to use it

Curb lines, walls and building faces from a drone or scanner cloud without tracing by hand.
Existing contours at a set interval straight from the cloud (elevation slices).
A cross section of a ditch, wall or road along a picked line (vertical section + UCS).

How to run it

Run VDCCLOUDSLICE; leave the LAS path blank to browse after OK; read a window (fast) or the whole file.
Choose the slice: elevations, heights above a TIN, along a polyline you pick, or along an alignment; set the levels and slab thickness.
Adjust the extraction numbers if the first pass is too busy or too sparse (grid bin, RANSAC tolerance, min inliers, simplify, join).
OK - pick the window (and the polyline) on screen; read the summary; the polylines land on the slice layers.
Re-run with Replace on to redo the same file's slices; Clear erases everything the tool drew.

Options

Slice: elevations (plain AutoCAD), heights above a TIN (Civil 3D), along a picked polyline (plain AutoCAD), along an alignment (Civil 3D).
Slab thickness: 0.5 ft default - thicker slabs catch sparse clouds, thinner ones give crisper lines.
Grid bin / min points per bin: 0.5 ft and 3 by default; raise the bin for sparse flights.
RANSAC tolerance / iterations / min inliers: how straight a run must be to become one straight segment (0.25 ft, 200, 12).
Simplify / join: Douglas-Peucker 0.2 ft on the curves; endpoints within 1 ft are joined.
Plan slices as: 2D polylines at the slice elevation, or 3D polylines through the points' own Z.
Max points: the in-memory cap (20 M) - read a window instead of the whole file on big clouds.

Watch out for

The cloud must be in the drawing's coordinates - a window with no points is the first sign it is not.
This traces what the points show, including cars, people and vegetation in the slab - review the linework, it is a draft.
Vertical sections lay the linework in the section plane (station along, elevation up) - the named UCS is how you look at it; a curved alignment section gets no UCS.