Development of System and Software
Invention of "Point Cloud PNG": A Specification for Fast Handling of Point Clouds in Web Applications
2021 Volume 32 Issue 2 Pages 39-42
Details
2021 Volume 32 Issue 2 Pages 39-42
Point Cloud PNG was invented as a format for handling a large number of two-dimensional and threedimensional point data via the Internet. Point Cloud PNG uses PNG, an existing popular image file format, to hold numerical data converted into pixels. In the PNG, the header and each point information are arranged in the order of laster scan. The prototype data of two-dimensional point cloud showed that the file size of Point Cloud PNG was extremely small, about 6.3% compared to Mapbox Vector Tiles format and about 0.49% compared to the original data GeoJSON. This format is also easy to use with WebGL, which allows the GPU to be manipulated in a web browser.
