by Quentin-Misslin·Workflow
Images © Quentin-Misslin. Used for product review; image policy.
Earns its place in the Blender extensions library as a native E57 importer that maps color, normals and materials onto Blender's PointCloud objects, with dependencies bundled per platform at install time.
E57 Point Cloud Importer reads .e57 point cloud files directly into Blender's native PointCloud object format. The ASTM E57 format is a compact, vendor-neutral standard for storing point clouds, images and metadata produced by 3D imaging systems such as LiDAR and laser scanners, designed as a universal format for interoperability between point cloud processing software.
On import, the extension converts E57 data into Blender's PointCloud geometry. It can extract RGB color and map it to the points, pull surface normals and build a toggleable Shader Node tree for orientation visualization, and set the base point radius from the import menu. It also creates and assigns a Principled BSDF material with proper attribute routing. The required Python dependencies are bundled per platform, so no internet connection is needed during installation.
The extension targets Blender 5.0.1 and newer, ships as separate packages for Windows, Linux and macOS Apple Silicon, and is licensed under GPL-3.0. Developed by Quentin Misslin.
E57 Point Cloud Importer is best for blender users bringing LiDAR or laser-scanner point clouds stored in the E57 format into Blender's native PointCloud objects.
E57 Point Cloud Importer is completely free to download and use.
E57 Point Cloud Importer targets Blender 5.0.1 and newer and is listed as compatible with Blender 5.0.1 and later releases. It ships as separate platform-specific packages for Windows x64, Linux x64 and macOS Apple Silicon, and version 1.0.1 fixed packaging so each user receives only the Python wheels required for their operating system. The required Python dependencies are bundled per platform, which means no internet connection is needed during installation. If you're on an earlier Blender release, you'll need to update before the extension will run.
E57 Point Cloud Importer installs through Blender's extension system. Download the latest release from the developer's Releases page and leave the ZIP file unextracted. In Blender, open Edit > Preferences > Get Extensions, click the drop-down menu in the top-right corner and choose Install from Disk, then select the downloaded import_e57.zip file and enable the extension. Because the required Python dependencies are bundled for supported platforms, no internet connection is needed during installation. After enabling it, the importer becomes available from Blender's File menu.
E57 Point Cloud Importer runs from File > Import > E57 Point Cloud (.e57). In the file browser sidebar you can toggle Import Colors to extract RGB data, toggle Import Normals to extract normal vectors, adjust Scale to set the global scale of the point cloud, and set Point Radius to change the visual size of the points. To see the point colors in the viewport, switch to Material Preview or Rendered mode. On import, it also creates and assigns a Principled BSDF material with proper attribute routing.
E57 Point Cloud Importer is licensed under the GNU General Public License v3.0 or later. The pre-compiled dependencies bundled in the extension's wheels directory, pye57 and pyquaternion, are distributed under the MIT License, and their original copyrights remain with their respective authors. As a GPL-3.0 project, its source is available through the linked GitHub repository, which is also where issues can be reported. The extension states that it does not require special permissions. For current licensing details, the developer's page is the place to check.
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