May 27th, 2014

Here is a short example of how to render a point cloud using MeshRenderer inside Unity, have in
mind that you have a limit of 65k points per mesh, so if you want to render more points, you need to
split them.

1
2
3 using UnityEngine;
4 using System.Collections;
5
6
7 [RequireComponent(typeof(MeshFilter), typeof(MeshRenderer))]
public class PointCloud : MonoBehaviour {
8
9
private Mesh mesh;
10 int numPoints = 60000;
11
12 // Use this for initialization
13 void Start () {
14 mesh = new Mesh();
15
GetComponent<MeshFilter>().mesh = mesh;
16 CreateMesh();
17 }
18
19 void CreateMesh() {
20 Vector3[] points = new Vector3[numPoints];
21 int[] indecies = new int[numPoints];
Color[] colors = new Color[numPoints];
22 for(int i=0;i<points.Length;++i) {
23 points[i] = new Vector3(Random.Range(-10,10), Random.Range (-10,10), Ran
24 indecies[i] = i;
25 colors[i] = new Color(Random.Range(0.0f,1.0f),Random.Range (0.0f,1.0f),R
}
26
27 mesh.vertices = points;
28 mesh.colors = colors;
29 mesh.SetIndices(indecies, MeshTopology.Points,0);
30
31 }
32 }
33
34

And here is the code for the material’s shader, that will use the vertex color from the mesh:

1 Shader "Custom/VertexColor" {
SubShader {
2 Pass {
3 LOD 200
4
5 CGPROGRAM
6 #pragma vertex vert
#pragma fragment frag
7
8 struct VertexInput {
9 float4 v : POSITION;
10 float4 color: COLOR;
11 };
12
13 struct VertexOutput {
float4 pos : SV_POSITION;
14 float4 col : COLOR;
15 };
16
17 VertexOutput vert(VertexInput v) {
18
19 VertexOutput o;
o.pos = mul(UNITY_MATRIX_MVP, v.v);
20
o.col = v.color;
21
22 return o;
23 }
24
25 float4 frag(VertexOutput o) : COLOR {
26 return o.col;
}
27
28 ENDCG
29 }
30 }
31
32 }
33
34
35
36
37

And this is how you enable GL_VERTEX_PROGRAM_POINT_SIZE and GL_POINT_SMOOTH,

so you could set the point size in your shader and have smooth points. Uou must attach this script to
your main Camera. The code was found on this thread

1 #if UNITY_STANDALONE
2 #define IMPORT_GLENABLE
#endif
3
4 using UnityEngine;
5 using System;
6 using System.Collections;
7 using System.Runtime.InteropServices;
8
9 public class EnablePointSize : MonoBehaviour
10 {
const UInt32 GL_VERTEX_PROGRAM_POINT_SIZE = 0x8642;
11 const UInt32 GL_POINT_SMOOTH = 0x0B10;
12
13 const string LibGLPath =
14 #if UNITY_STANDALONE_WIN
15 "opengl32.dll";
#elif UNITY_STANDALONE_OSX
16 "/System/Library/Frameworks/OpenGL.framework/OpenGL";
17 #elif UNITY_STANDALONE_LINUX
18 "libGL"; // Untested on Linux, this may not be correct
19 #else
20 null; // OpenGL ES platforms don't require this feature
#endif
21
22 #if IMPORT_GLENABLE
23 [DllImport(LibGLPath)]
24 public static extern void glEnable(UInt32 cap);
25
26 private bool mIsOpenGL;
27
28 void Start()
{
29 mIsOpenGL = SystemInfo.graphicsDeviceVersion.Contains("OpenGL");
30 }
31
32 void OnPreRender()
33 {
34 if (mIsOpenGL)
glEnable(GL_VERTEX_PROGRAM_POINT_SIZE);
35 glEnable(GL_POINT_SMOOTH);
36 }
37 #endif
38 }
39
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point cloud shaders unity | 4 Comments
Comments:

HashimY says:
2014-06-24 13:44:52Hi.Cheers for that. I've been scratching my head on how to display point clouds properly for days. The
shader worked great. I'm having a little trouble with the "EnablePointSize" script. In the editor I'm getting "the associated
script cannot be loaded....." message. I cannot seem to find what is causing the error. I tried reducing the code by simply
saying const string LibGLPath ="opengl32.dll"; Not quite sure what I'm missing Cheers Hashim
Nelson says:
2015-09-15 21:59:05Great info. Thank you for posting. I can't seem to get the color of the points to change using your shader.
Is there something special we need to do to the material?
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