Caveat: I am very new to Houdini

I have generated a point cloud (I have either ply ascii, ply binary or pcd formats available), and I would like to import it into Houdini for manipulation.

Can anyone offer me guidance for where I should begin? I have found mention of relevant Vex nodes (pcimport etc), but they don't appear to be present in my vex node list.

Houdini is able to import ply files through import->geometry or you can put down a file sop node and import your ply through that.

Thanks, that sort-of works.

I successfully imported the cloud. However, there is a repetitive pattern present in the Houdini visualization that is not present in the raw data (viewed in something like Meshlab or cloud compare). Also, there appear to be new points in a 3d grid pattern beyond the boundary of the imported points.

Any ideas on why these artifacts have been introduced?

Also, the density of my cloud seems to be much lower than in reality. Either the density has been reduced, or the artifact points I am seeing are the missing points, in an incorrect position.

Problem solved. I has a rogue forward declaration of a camera in my ply file. The camera did not exist in the value list. Removing the forward declaration resolved the issue.

Thanks for the help!