CloudCompare forum

Hi.
I find CloudCompare very usefull.
I am beginner.
I wonder if I can integrate Visual Studio with CloudCompare.
I normally use API's to communicate with Windows programs so that I do automation.

Is there a way to access CloudCompare from VS?
Is it the Command Line approach? In that case how does that work with VS?

Thanks,
Henrik

So yes, there's a command line mode: https://www.cloudcompare.org/doc/wiki/i ... _line_mode

Otherwise some parts of CloudCompare are accessible as C++ libraries (CC_CORE_LIB with most of the algorithms - LGPL license - and the the qCC_GL, qCC_IO and qCC_DB respectively for the display, file input/output and entities management - they are all under the GPL license).

Welcome to the club! CloudCompare is a beast once you get the hang of it. If you’re looking to automate things from Visual Studio, the Command Line Interface (CLI) is definitely the most straightforward path. I’ve done this by using System.Diagnostics.Process in C# (or CreateProcess in C++) to call the CloudCompare executable with specific arguments. You basically pass your commands—like -O to open a file or -S_TRIM for cropping—as a string of arguments. It’s super reliable for batch processing, though just a heads-up: it runs in a separate process, so you won't get a "live" link inside your VS GUI. If you need something deeper, you’d have to look into writing a custom plugin using their official SDK, but for 90% of automation tasks, the CLI approach via VS works like a charm.