Work with DBMS-Based Point Cloud Storage

Developed as part of support for work with point clouds, the point cloud storage architecture allows it to be used for implementation over various data storage technologies. In the base part of nanoCAD, it is used over the memory of the process of nanoCAD application. This approach limits the amount of data that can be used when working with nanoCAD. To remove the limitation on working with super-large point clouds, a storage implementation variant with the architecture described above was developed on the PostgreSQL DBMS. The features described below are the first step taken to support storage of extra-large point cloud data using this technology. At this stage, the infrastructure was created for exporting point clouds uploaded to nanoCAD to a new storage, importing data from this storage back, as well as storage administration utilities based on the PostgreSQL DBMS. It is assumed that the import of super-large clouds will be carried out on a computer with high performance characteristics and a large amount of RAM. The storage itself will be deployed in the user’s local network on the PostgreSQL DBMS. Under such conditions, all computers located in the same local network with nanoCAD installed on them (provided that they get access to the deployed storage) will be able to work with parts of the cloud uploaded to the storage, having a much smaller amount of RAM and lower performance characteristics. This will be achieved due to the fact that when importing a part of the cloud from storage, only the data that make up the selected fragment will be transferred to the local computer.

In addition, the principles of versioning of saving point clouds are incorporated into the storage design. This allows you to incrementally update the data in the storage when processing the point clouds stored in it.

One database with storage can store an unlimited number of point clouds and their versions (limitations are placed only by the DBMS capabilities and server characteristics).

The development of this technology in the future will allow in the next versions of nanoCAD to implement the direct operation of the Point Cloud object on the storage over the PostgreSQL.

To work with Databases for point clouds, you need to install the PostGis extension for PostgreSql.