Manual

Octree, Degree & Samples Per Node

When you’re in the Windows version of the Matter and Form scanner software and

saving or exporting your scan as a meshed object (i.e. as an OBJ or STL file), you are

prompted to enter in your desired “Octree” and “Degree” settings. When you’re in the

Mac version of the software, you are prompted to enter in your desired “Octree” and

“Samples per node”.

These are fairly complex subjects, but after experimenting you will get a feel for how

these two settings affect the final meshed object.

Octree Depth: Octrees help the computer organize the points of a 3D object very

efficiently. An oversimplified way of explaining it is to imagine slicing up your point

cloud into eight equal cubes (octants). That is the equivalent to an Octree depth of 1.

To get to a depth of 2, slice up each octant into eight more octants (totaling 64

octants). Slice/divide those 64, and you get 512 octants. At an Octree depth of 9 (8

9

)

you will have 134,217,728 individual octants (i.e., 134,217,728 individual little cubes

grouping your points together).

0 Octree

1 Octree

2 Octree

The higher the number the Octree Depth parameter is set, the more importance is

put on each point. This will also mean exponentially longer mesh times. The lower

the Octree Depth number, the less importance each individual point has.

