Automate your data processing through Command Line Interface in Leica REGISTER 360 and ChatGPT

Preview:

All the time we are looking for some ways how to improve the speed of processing time. As you could know Importing and Exporting stages sometimes takes a lot of time. In Cyclone REGISTER360 we can run some operations through Command Line Interface to automate processing steps. All that you need to do is type which setting for each step you want to apply and click Enter button. The Cyclone REGISTER360 will do all operations in the background one by one without user interactions. That approach could significantly improve the speed of data processing in some specific scenarios.

To be able to run the Cyclone REGISTER 360 through Command Line Interface you should have the Cyclone WORKFLOW (PUBLISHER PRO) license on your PC. And some commands are not available in REGISTER360 BLK Edition. To check all options and the latest updates you can go to the Online Help page. At the moment the below scenarios are available:

When you run any of that processes you can add specific settings, like merging all E57 files to one single file after processing or extracting Rectified images from b2g files. To check all available commands go to the same Online Help page for REGISTER360.

Aditional point cloud which represent device trajectory movement

Here is an example of data processing for RTC360 to E57:

The whole code line will be looks like that:

C:\Program Files\Leica Geosystems\Cyclone REGISTER 360\Register360.exe -regexp2e57 "d:\staging area" Deleteproject=Y Panores=4096 Bundlede57s=Y

Command Line Interface mode, Convert RTC360 data to E57

While processing the software will run automatic registration for scanner data from the RTC360 in the following ways:

Support for the BLK360 G1 includes Auto Cloud for registration. Cyclone FIELD 360 linking is NOT supported for BLK360 G1 data due to the fact that Cyclone FIELD 360 links are stored exclusively on the tablet.

With the latest updates of FIELD360 you can create additional links and close your loops, which will guarantee you correct registration. And to be sure that everything was done fine you can open the project in REGISTER360 and check the accuracy for registration.

So as the final result, you'll get a registered point cloud in E57 format with desired settings. A text file showing the registration results will be written to the user-specified staging folder.

It's the easiest scenario for data processing which include Import, Image Generation, Point Cloud Colorizations, Registering, and Publishing stages, but for Autonomous scanners like BLK2GO, BLK2FLY, and BLKARC scenarios could be more complex with additional file types generation, like Rectified images or separate point cloud which will represent the trajectory of the scanner.

Each format type for the final deliverable includes its own features and commands, for example, if you'll choose to convert b2g file to e57 format you can specify a folder for export, but for other types of formats that option is not available. If you'll choose to convert b2g to lgs format you can specify what types of information that file should include, you can add a pano image, point cloud, ability to make measurements on panoramic images, etc, but for other types of formats, these options will not apply any effect.

Panoramic and Rectified images extracted from B2G file

To make your life easier REGISTER360 remember which last settings for importing b2g files you used before and use them as default settings. So you can:

Settings that you selected will be used while processing through the command line interface. 

Also, keep in mind that if you working with Leica REGISTER360 BLK Edtion you should specify another path in the command line interface and another starting application. Here is an example of converting b2g files through REGISTER360 BLK Edition to LGS format:

C:\Program Files\Leica Geosystems\Cyclone REGISTER 360 (BLK Edition)\Register360-BLK.exe -b2g2lgs "Raw Data Folder" interval=5 geotag-waypoints cloud pano panores=2048 tvmeasure deleteproject=Y alignb2g=Y

Command Line Interface mode, Convert B2G file to LGS

For me, it was interesting how to generate a bat file from that line of commands to be able to run it any time I want just with click on it without specifying each time all these commands and changing the path for running the application, so I decided to ask ChatGPT generate code for me with instruction because I have no idea how to do that kind of files. ChatGPT provide me with detailed instructions and examples on how to do that, I realized that it's much easier than I thought. You just need to add a few additional commands to your text and save it as a file with the bat extension. Next, you can run it with double click on it and it'll automatically run all specified processes.

As you could imagine it could be not so easy to remember all variations and all available commands to generate that files, that's why I asked ChatGPT to write for me a code for my site with a text generator based on user-selected options. After a few unsuccessful attempts, it gives me a working code. Below you could find two versions of that text generator. 

The first version of the text generator is suitable for converting RTC360 and BLK360 data to E57 with below options:

As a result, you can generate text which you should insert into your Command-Line, and generate a .bat file, which you can run with a double click and start the process.

Convert Leica RTC360 and BLK360 to E57 (suitabale for version Cyclone REGISTER 360 Plus version 2023.0.2)

The second version of the text generator is suitable for converting BLK2GO, BLKARC, and BLK2FLY data to LGS, E57, and RAF formats with the below options:

Convert Leica BLK2GO, BLKARC and BLK2FLY to Raf, E57 and LGS (suitabale for version Cyclone REGISTER 360 Plus and Cyclone REGISTER360 Plus BLK Edition version 2023.0.2)

If you would like to download example of bat files, then click the below button. You can open these files via Notepad and modify them