<p>A point cloud is often derived by sampling.  Each point represents an observation.  Sometimes, a point cloud is turned into a surface by fitting triangles to the points in the form of an STL file.</p>

<p>A raster is a 2D grid of pixels.  It divides the area of an image into constant-sized little squares.  Each of these squares has a value.</p>

<p>A 3D raster is made of voxels.  It divides 3-space into constant-sized little cubes.  Each of these cubes has a value.</p>

<p>Pixels and voxels are rendering techniques.  A point cloud is a sampling technique.</p>

<p>The Wikipedia article, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voxel" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voxel</a>, is helpful.</p>

<p>In a real system the pixels may not be square or the voxels not strictly cubic, but in every system I've worked with, they do form a regular tiling of the plane for pixels, and fill 3d space for voxels.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-09-18T03:45:17.200Z
2017-09-18T03:45:17.200Z
cmm
<p>I believe a point cloud is just a collection of points, while voxels - "3D pixels" - define location and a cube area. They seem to be pretty equivalent mathematically.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-09-14T19:52:02.470Z
2017-09-14T19:52:02.470Z
ctag
<p>can anyone explain in the simplest terms please what is the difference between a point cloud and a voxel mesh?</p>

<file-formats><scanning>
Layman term explanation of the difference between voxel and point cloud
Rott
# Layman term explanation of the difference between voxel and point cloud

(Asked by: username_0 on 2017-08-27)

can anyone explain in the simplest terms please what is the difference between a point cloud and a voxel mesh?

**Tags:** file-formats, scanning


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## 2 answers

### Answer by username_1 on 2017-09-18. Score: 3 | Accepted answer

A point cloud is often derived by sampling. Each point represents an observation. Sometimes, a point cloud is turned into a surface by fitting triangles to the points in the form of an STL file.

A raster is a 2D grid of pixels. It divides the area of an image into constant-sized little squares. Each of these squares has a value.

A 3D raster is made of voxels. It divides 3-space into constant-sized little cubes. Each of these cubes has a value.

Pixels and voxels are rendering techniques. A point cloud is a sampling technique.

The Wikipedia article, <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voxel>, is helpful.

In a real system the pixels may not be square or the voxels not strictly cubic, but in every system I've worked with, they do form a regular tiling of the plane for pixels, and fill 3d space for voxels.


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### Answer by username_2 on 2017-09-14. Score: 1

I believe a point cloud is just a collection of points, while voxels - "3D pixels" - define location and a cube area. They seem to be pretty equivalent mathematically.


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