XGRIDS Pro Guide™ / Module 9: LCC Studio

9.1 Understanding the LCC Studio Pipeline

Meet the LCC software family, then follow a job from field capture to a finished, shareable 3DGS model: the reconstruction modes, which device feeds each one, and the hardware that sets processing time.

Section 1

What LCC Is

LCC, short for Lixel CyberColor, turns the raw LiDAR and image data from an XGRIDS scanner into a photorealistic 3D Gaussian Splatting model that you can navigate, edit, measure, export, and publish as a web link. The desktop application that runs the reconstruction is LCC Studio, and it works locally on a Windows workstation. LixelStudio, covered in Module 8, produces point clouds for survey and BIM. LCC produces 3DGS models for visualization, virtual tours, and client delivery. Many jobs run through both.

This page is the map of the module. It introduces the LCC software family, shows the full pipeline, lays out the five reconstruction modes and which device drives each, covers the settings that recur across modes, and explains the hardware that governs processing time. Each stage links to the page that covers it in depth.

Section 2

The LCC Software Family

LCC is not one program. It is a small family of applications that hand work down a chain: reconstruct the model, edit it, view it, and, when the deliverable is BIM, model from it. Each app owns one job. Knowing which app owns which job is the fastest way to avoid doing the right work in the wrong tool.

Application	What it does	When to use it	Who it is for
LCC Studio	Reconstructs raw scanner data into a 3DGS model, manages your model library, and publishes shareable links. The engine every job starts in.	First, on every job. Import capture data, pick a reconstruction mode, and process.	Anyone running a capture-to-model job.
LCC Scene Editor	Builds the experience around a finished model: viewpoints, guided tours, annotations, measurements, floor-plan layouts, and scene reports, then publishes them. It arranges the scene and does not alter the underlying points.	After reconstruction, to turn a raw model into a client-ready walkthrough or presentation.	Whoever prepares the deliverable.
LCC Model Editor	Works at the point level: select, crop, separate, clone, and color grade the Gaussian model itself.	When the model data needs cleanup, stray points removed, a section isolated, or color balanced.	Whoever cleans and finishes the model data.
LCC Viewer	Opens a published LCC model in a web browser for navigation, viewpoints, and basic measurement. No install, no editing.	To share a finished model by link, or to host it on your own site for clients and reviewers.	Clients, reviewers, and anyone you send a link to.
LCC for Revit	Brings an LCC model into Revit as a live modeling reference, with real-time sync, AI-assisted levels, walls, doors, and windows, semantic point-cloud overlay, and issue tracking.	When the deliverable is a BIM model built from the scan.	BIM modelers doing scan-to-BIM in Revit.

How they fit together

LCC Studio comes first and holds the model library. From there the work forks by intent. The two editors both edit, but at different depths. Scene Editor shapes what a viewer experiences, the tours, annotations, and layouts, and leaves the points untouched. Model Editor edits the points themselves, cropping, separating, and color grading. They open from the same library and share one sign-in, so you move between them without re-importing.

The LCC Viewer is where a finished model lands for everyone who does not run the software. It renders a published model in a browser, with nothing to install, which makes it the delivery surface for clients and reviewers. LCC for Revit is the BIM offramp. It drives that same viewer as a reference while you model in Revit, so the scan and the emerging BIM stay in step.

For the tool-by-tool reference, see 9.9 Scene Editor Tools and 9.10 Model Editor Tools. Export and publishing options are on 9.7 Export Formats.

Stay on the current release. XGRIDS adds device support, reconstruction improvements, and export formats between releases, and an older build can behave differently or miss a feature a job needs. Download the latest build from xgrids.com/intl/support/download. One installer covers LCC Studio, the Scene Editor, and the Model Editor. LCC for Revit installs separately as a Revit plugin, and the LCC Viewer runs in the browser with nothing to install.

Section 3

The Pipeline, End to End

Every LCC Studio job follows the same five stages. The work you do in the field determines what is possible at every stage after it, so the pipeline starts on site, not at the workstation.

Stage	What happens	Covered on
1. Capture	Scan the site in the field with the technique the job requires: a single continuous scene, multiple segments for fusion, or a ground scan paired with a drone flight.	Modules 3 to 7; and 9.2 to 9.4 for the field steps each mode needs.
2. Create and import	Connect the device or point LCC at the capture folder, choose the reconstruction mode, and let LCC read the data and detect the device type.	9.2 to 9.4, and 9.8 for mode selection.
3. Reconstruct	Set the parameters, preview the point cloud, and run the reconstruction. This is the long, compute-heavy step.	9.8 for settings; 9.2 to 9.5 per mode.
4. Edit	Clean, crop, color grade, measure, and annotate the model. Scene-level work and point-level work use two different editors.	9.9 Scene Editor Tools and 9.10 Model Editor Tools.
5. Export and publish	Export to the delivery format the downstream tool needs, or publish a shareable web link.	9.7 Export Formats.

The field stage sets the ceiling. Georeferencing, floor plans, fusion connections, and the aerial bridge all depend on data captured in the field. None can be added at the workstation. If a job needs any of them, plan the capture for it, because a scan that missed them has to be re-flown or re-walked.

Section 4

The Five Reconstruction Modes

You pick the mode when you create the project. It is fixed at reconstruction and cannot be changed without reprocessing.

Mode	Input	Use it for
Single Model	One continuous scan from one device.	The standard starting point. Any single scene that fits one session.
Map Fusion	Up to 10 scan segments from the same device type, 200 minutes combined.	Sites too large for one battery or one session.
Aerial-Ground Map Fusion	A ground scan, drone mission photos, and vertical bridge photos.	Sites that need roof and aerial context joined to ground and interior detail.
Aerial Reconstruction	100 to 10,000 drone photos, no ground scan.	Ultra-large sites captured from the air alone.
Video Reconstruction	One MP4, MOV, or WEBM video.	Building a model from video footage, with frames extracted automatically.

Section 5

Which Device Drives Which Mode

The scanner-driven modes support the L2 Pro, K2, and PortalCam. Aerial Reconstruction and Video Reconstruction are driven by their input, a drone image set or a video file, not by a specific scanner.

Mode	L2 Pro	K2	PortalCam
Single Model	Yes	Yes	Yes
Map Fusion	Yes	Yes, up to 10 sub-scenes	Yes
Aerial-Ground Map Fusion	Yes, ground data	Yes, ground data	Yes, ground data

Feature support by device. HD Enhancement and Spatial Recognition are available on the L2 Pro and PortalCam. On L2 Pro the L2 Pro 16-line and 32-line versions cannot be fused together. Aerial-Ground Map Fusion always needs the ground scan, the drone mission photos, and the vertical bridge photos together, on every scanner.

Section 6

Settings That Recur Across Modes

A few settings appear in more than one mode and shape the result. The full settings reference is on 9.8 LCC Studio Tools; these are the ones worth knowing before you start.

Reconstruction Quality. Fast, Standard, or Slow. Standard for client work; Slow for final, detail-critical models; Fast for quick previews. Slow raises detail and GPU memory use and takes the longest.
Coordinate System Conversion. Georeferences the model when the scan carries RTK data. It decides automatically: with valid RTK it converts to the target system; without it the model still builds, in local coordinates. Leave it on None indoors.
Maximum Gaussian Points. In Single Model it caps the model's total points; keep it within GPU memory, usually 25 million or below. In the fusion modes it applies per block and the system auto-adjusts, so higher values have little effect.
Layering Optimization. Corrects loop-closure drift that shows as misalignment or a doubled wall on a large loop path. It applies to PortalCam captures and is on by default. Turn it off for repetitive layouts such as identical floors or cubicles, where it can misread one place as another.
LCC2 output. The next-generation format is smaller (SOG compression cuts size 8 to 26 times), loads faster, and is the native editable format of the Model Editor. Legacy LCC and PLY upgrade to LCC2 automatically on import. See 9.7 Export Formats.

Section 7

Hardware, and What It Buys You

LCC reconstruction is compute-heavy and roughly split between the GPU and the CPU. GPU memory and system RAM set the ceiling on how large a job you can process. Match the tier to the work.

Tier	Use for	Specification
Basic	Single models, standard scale	8-core CPU (Core i7 10700K or Ryzen 7 3700X), 64 GB RAM, RTX 3060 12 GB or Quadro RTX A4000 16 GB, 120 GB free.
Recommended	Single models, larger and higher quality	16-core CPU (Ryzen 9 7950X), 64 GB or more, RTX 4090 24 GB (or RTX 6000 Ada 48 GB / L40 48 GB), 240 GB free on SSD.
Fusion	Map Fusion and Aerial-Ground	16-core or higher CPU (Ryzen 9 9950X), 64 GB DDR5 minimum, or 128 GB for large data, RTX 3090 minimum, RTX 4090 or 4090D preferred.

RAM sets how much total capture a job can hold. 64 GB handles about 30 minutes of total capture reliably; 128 GB about 60 minutes. This matters most for Map Fusion, where the minutes across all segments add up toward the job total. A single scene is usually well within these limits. HD Enhancement and Spatial Recognition additionally need more than 8 GB of GPU memory to run at all.

Reserve at least twice the capture size in free space. Keep it on an SSD separate from the LCC install directory. A reconstruction can fail partway for lack of room, and the higher-end GPU mainly buys speed, not the ability to hold a larger job. Memory is what holds the job.

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