CloudCompare forum

Good Morning guys,
I can't seem to find instruction or a tutorial to solve a challenge I am struggling with because I am sure that I am not using the correct search syntax.
I am importing either a mesh or an asc point cloud into cloud compare and it comes in at an "arbitrary" orientation.
For instance if I get a scan or mesh of a CUBE it is oriented at off angles in relation to the world XYZ.

What is the best way to alight the sides or features of the point cloud to be parallel or perpendicular to the axis?. I want to to this so when the information is used down steam in a CAD application it has an orientation that it is easy to work with.

Thank you

Well, there's the 'Level' tool (https://www.cloudcompare.org/doc/wiki/i ... itle=Level) that allows you to very quickly pick 3 points and make them lie in a horizontal plane (but that's only part of what you want). From there you could manually translate/rotate the entity in a constrained way (https://www.cloudcompare.org/doc/wiki/i ... ation_Tool).

And there's also the Align tool with can be used with theoretical points (either input manually or from a file) to match points of your entity with points expressed in another coordinate system.

Thank you David. I did find the level tool but as you mentioned that is part of the solution.
I am wondering if there is a way to create a plane that can then be aligned to the wold axis?

Well you can easily create a plane with the 'Primitive factory' tool: https://www.cloudcompare.org/doc/wiki/i ... ve_Factory

And then you can 'edit' its position and orientation in different ways (right click on the plane item in the DB tree and choose 'Edit', or use the 'Edit > Apply transformation' tool, etc.).