ReCap Decimation & Multiple Scanner Registration

[dm-asp]

Hello,

So far in the course of our normal operations we've been making great use of a Trimble X7 as our primary scanner and ReCap as our primary point cloud processing/editing software. However, we are looking to address two issues:

1.) Better point density. While the X7 is great for capturing interior spaces, which is our primary application, it can be spotty when capturing small features--and nine times out of ten the job is capturing piping, wiring, complex installations, etc. etc. Likewise, if I understand correctly ReCap decimates imported point clouds and will only display points at a resolution of one point per mm^3. While not necessarily a problem for our piping designers, our fabrication shop and several clients have asked for higher scan resolutions.

2.) Registering multiple scans/point clouds. We recently tested out the FARO Freestyle 2, which sadly didn't seem to give us much better resolution than the X7, but more importantly produced scans which couldn't be registered in ReCap due to the lack of a scan location (because it's handheld scanner and not a stationary one).

So, in short, would you guys be able to recommend software that a.) doesn't decimate point clouds, or at least has better control over when and where decimations happens, and b.) is a little more friendly to non-stationary scanners?

Thanks for your assistance everyone~

[VXGrid]

Just my 2 cents:
Matching non-stationary scanners with stationary scans is not an easy thing to do.
Sure, in theory it is a 6 parameter transformation (no scale), so you could use 3 targets, pick them in both point clouds, transform one of the projects and you are good to go for combining them.

This is possible in our software PointCab Origins, but still I am not a fan of having multiple point clouds with changing density in one project.
If the density is somewhat equal it is fine, but once the density is around 1 to 100 (meaning one cloud has a density of 1mm and the other of 10 cm) there is not much benefit of having the sparse point cloud at all.