Xtykutl

I'm trying to render point clouds using Autodesk Forge's viewer. This works fine using THREE.Geometry as described here https://forge.autodesk.com/blog/using-pointcloud-forge-viewer. In this article it is specified that one cannot use BufferGeometry.

However, I want to be absolutely sure if there's any way of using PointCloud with BufferGeometry without having to create a THREE.Geometry. I already have the data as Float32Array for the points and Uint8Array for colors so putting them in THREE.Vector3s feels like a lot of overhead here.

Looking through the source https://autodeskviewer.com/viewers/latest/viewer3D.js there's some mention of point cloud buffers, (search for createPointCloudBuffers(geometry).

Edit:

When trying to use THREE.BufferGeometry with THREE.PointCloud with:

const geometry = new THREE.BufferGeometry();

geometry.addAttribute('position', new THREE.BufferAttribute(position, 3));

geometry.addAttribute('color', new THREE.BufferAttribute(color, 3));

const pc = THREE.PointCloud(geometry, <material>);

I'm getting the following message:

Only THREE.Mesh can be rendered by the Firefly renderer. Use THREE.Mesh to draw lines. (Look at renderBufferDirect function in https://autodeskviewer.com/viewers/latest/viewer3D.js)

You might be in luck! Looking at THREE r71 code https://autodeskviewer.com/viewers/latest/three.js

you can find the point cloud implementation by searching for the text...

THREE.PointCloud = function ( geometry, material ) {

notice the input is this.geometry. Now scroll down a few lines down, to find code that shows support for THREE.BufferGeometry as well, here...

if ( geometry instanceof THREE.BufferGeometry ) {

Modify these lines of code:
https://github.com/wallabyway/markupExt/blob/fcce2940379ffd9dc27065fa8dd9b34cd37f8ef0/docs/markupExt.js#L92-L96

from using 'THREE.Geometry' to 'THREE.BufferGeometry'

like this...

var geometry = new THREE.BufferGeometry();

var vertices = new Float32Array( [  -1.0, -1.0,  1.0, etc ]);

geometry.addAttribute( 'position', new THREE.BufferAttribute( vertices, 3 ) );

geometry.addAttribute( 'color', new THREE.BufferAttribute( vertices, 3 ) );

Essentially modifying this example to use BufferGeometry...
https://forge.autodesk.com/blog/3d-markup-icons-and-info-card

Let me know if that helps