A point cloud is a collection of points in 3-dimensional coordinate space represented by x, y, and z axes. These points may just form a geometric shape or more complex structures such as a 3-dimensional representation of the real world. Various libraries, even with open-sources, such as the Point Cloud Library (PCL) and Intel’s Open3D, provide native datatype for a point cloud. These libraries not only allow simple geometric transformations of the cloud but also provide sophisticated functionalities such as the reconstruction of a 3D scene from various images.
However, this article discusses a simple geometric approach to achieve the reverse of 3D reconstruction, i.e generate an image from a point cloud. We will also see how to project the point cloud onto other non-planar geometries such as a sphere. Hence, our objective is the following