CloudCompare forum

Can I select a specific point as the rotation center and rotate the point cloud around that fixed point independently around the X, Y, and Z axes?

Yes, either you can double click on an existing point (or point on a mesh surface). Or you can use the 'Display > Camera settings' dialog, and set the 'rotation center' manually.

In any case, make sure you disable the 'auto' rotation center selection (either in the left-most toolbar, 6th icon starting from the top)

Thank you for your comment. I may not have explained my question clearly enough.

As I understand it, the method you mentioned is for changing how the point cloud is viewed on the screen. What I am asking about, however, is the rotation axis used with the Translate/Rotate command.

Ah, in this case you should first apply a translation to the rotation point (-Cx, -Cy, -Cz). Then apply the rotations only (about X, Y or Z). And last apply the inverse translation (+Cx, +Cy, +Cz).

Is it possible to specify the center position manually?

Is it possible to manually align two point clouds by translating and rotating one point cloud around the same point as the reference point cloud?

My idea is to first move the point cloud that needs to be aligned so that a common point between the two point clouds is at the same position as the corresponding point in the reference point cloud.

Then, if I could perform the translation and rotation around that common point, I believe I could manually align the two point clouds with each other.

Is there a way to do this in CloudCompare?

You can but not directly. You have to create a 'Coordinate system' (CS) object with the Primitive factory. Either you set the rotation point coordinates as the 4th column (3 first values), or you translate the create primitive with the 'Edit > Apply transformation' tool.

With such a primitive, when you use the 'Edit > Translate/rotate' tool, you can use the 'advanced' mode, then select 'Rotate around' this coordinate system entity, and then set the 'rotation axis selection' to 'Reference axis'. This will make the object rotate about the center/origin of the CS object. You can then choose whether you want to rotate about X, Y and Z axes of the CS.