You can measure a point cloud in a web browser. Open the scan, click two points, read the distance. No CloudCompare install, no ReCap licence, no 40 GB download first.
That has been true in specialist tools for a while. What has changed is that it now works on a link you send to someone else, which is usually the person who actually has the question.
The question behind the question
Nobody asks to measure a point cloud for its own sake. They ask because a client sent an email that says “how wide is the access road at the north gate?” and the answer is somewhere inside a 3 GB scan.
Historically that meant one of three things. You opened the scan yourself and typed the number into a reply. You exported a marked-up screenshot. Or you told them to install something, which they did not do.
Browser measurement collapses all three. The person with the question opens the link and takes the measurement themselves.
What you can measure
Swyvl has four tools, and they work the same way in every 3D and map viewer:
| Tool | What it gives you |
|---|---|
| Point | The coordinates of a single point, in the file’s own frame |
| Distance | A straight line between two points, in metres or feet |
| Area | A closed polygon, with the enclosed area |
| Height | The vertical difference between two points |
There is no volume tool. Volume from a point cloud needs a defined base surface, and getting that wrong produces a confident number that is badly incorrect, so it is not in this release.
Measurement works in the point cloud viewer, the 3D Tiles globe, the Gaussian splat and Xgrids LCC2 scene viewers, the mesh viewer and the map view for orthomosaics. It is on every plan, including the free one.
The part most tools skip: what the number rests on
A measurement is only as meaningful as the coordinate frame underneath it. A drone orthomosaic flown with ground control and a Gaussian splat made from a phone video will both happily report “4.2 m”, and only one of those is a dimension you would act on.
So every measurement in Swyvl carries a badge saying which case you are in:
- Georeferenced. The file sits on a named grid, so coordinates and lengths are real-world and can be checked against control.
- True scale. Lengths are real metres, but the file has no map position.
- Indicative. The file carries no verified scale, so treat the number as a rough size, not a dimension.
The badge describes the frame, not the quality of the capture. A georeferenced orthomosaic measured in the browser is as accurate as the survey behind it. A splat is indicative, and indicative measurements are not for construction, permitting or dimensional verification.
This matters most on the link you send out. Your client does not know which of their files were flown with control and which were not, and a number with no context invites them to treat all of them the same way.
Measurements are not saved, on purpose
Close the tab and the measurements are gone. Nothing is written back to the file.
That reads like a limitation and it is a deliberate one. It means anyone holding a share link can measure freely without altering the deliverable you sent, and without you having to decide who gets write access to a survey record. The file your client opens in two years is the file you delivered.
Saved, named measurements that persist across sessions are a different feature with different consequences, particularly around who is allowed to change what. That is a separate piece of work.
What this does not replace
Browser measurement is for checking and communicating. It is not a substitute for a desktop package when you are doing the actual production work.
If you need volumes, cross-sections, deviation analysis against a design model, classification editing or registration, you want CloudCompare, ReCap, Cyclone or whatever your firm already runs. Those tools are not going anywhere, and a browser is a poor place to do a week of point cloud work.
The split is roughly: heavy work in the desktop tool, questions answered in the browser. Most of the measuring that happens after delivery is questions.
Trying it
You can measure a scan in Swyvl on the free plan, and so can anyone you send a link to. If you just want to look at a point cloud in a browser without an account at all, the free point cloud viewer opens a LAS, LAZ or PLY locally, though measurement lives in the platform rather than that tool.
More detail on the tools and the badges is on the measurement feature page, and the step-by-step is in the docs.