Allow configuration of (arbitrary?) clip planes in 2D & 3D views

[ceubel-pr]

Having the ability to "crop" PCDs from a 2D particular view, based on some min and max distance, would be very valuable for the PythonSDK. It would allow us to take cross-sections of PCDs along some trajectory. There's already the NearClipPlane, adding the FarClipPlane would make this possible!

Posting NearClipPlane here for reference https://ref.rerun.io/docs/python/0.21.0/common/blueprint_components/#rerun.blueprint.components.NearClipPlane
and recent PR #8348

PS. setting clip planes directly in the 3D view and measurement features (like Meshlab) would also be nice :)

[Wumpf]

We always render with infinite reverse-z projection, therefore we don't have a far clip plane to expose right now.
Clip planes on camera projections are often seen as an unwanted limitation, so I reckon since you want to use it for visualization you'd like them fixed in scene space rather than attached to a camera?

PCD==point cloud data?

[Wumpf]

Very related (if not redundant to):

• Spatial2D: allow setting data range / clip rectangle via blueprint & ui #6247

[ceubel-pr]

Ah, I see. Thank you.

I suppose I was thinking of adding virtual cameras to view 2D cross-sections of a point cloud, given a near and far plane. This is more of a post-processing, analysis step on top of the logged data.

For instance, say I 3D scan a tree trunk, where each 3D scan is a logged timestep, but then I want to also view each cross-section of the composite tree trunk scan along the trunk's axis, say at 1" intervals to inspect it. My thought process is to create virtual cameras along the trunk axis and then control the near/far clipping, and then I would be able to flip through each of these cross-sectional waypoints to visualize. I'm trying to use rerun as a post-processing analysis tool on top of visualizing the scanning process, I am not sure if this is good practice. But, its been so powerful for the latter, it would be awesome to have features that support the former.

"PCD" really is a point cloud file format, but I too often subconciously use it to just mean a point cloud.

[Wumpf]

Makes a lot of sense to me, thanks for the added context!
Might be challenging, but I think you're right this can be a powerful tool to have, definitely worth looking into