Hi FME community,
From FME 2021.1 onwards the Autodesk ReCaP writer will be deprecated (https://community.safe.com/s/article/FME-Deprecations). Please vote when you currently use the Autodesk ReCaP writer and don't want it to deprecate.
Background
Engineers of our infrastructural projects use very often the Autodesk ReCap data format for viewing their point clouds in applications like Revit, AutoCAD, Autodesk ReCaP and Autodesk 3ds max. With this efficient format they can compare their designs with the current - often complex - situation. I would suspect that the whole engineering industry benefits from the efficient way of FME indexing raw point cloud data that's ready to use in BIM programs like Revit.
Several alternatives we’ve considered for our point cloud workflow:
- Importing txt, xyz, pts files in Revit, however the indexing happens on PC’s of the engineers where they’re not equipped for.
- Importing LAZ files into Autodesk ReCap and save the RCP/RCS files to view them in Revit, however this is an error prone manual process that we want to automate.
- Different versions of FME paralleled to be still capable of using the ReCap writer, however this is not possible due to our use compability issues with FME Server.
- Viewing the point clouds in Point Cloud Scene Layers, but comparison with the designs in BIM applications is more difficult.
If you use other (maybe even better) formats, please let me know. Else, vote for getting the format high on the backlog of FME's Product Managers.
Illustration in ReCap of Rijksmuseum, The Netherlands (source: open elevation dataset AHN3)
Kind regards,
Jan Droesen
FME specialist
Movares Netherlands