How To Install cloudcompare on Ubuntu 20.04

In this tutorial we learn how to install cloudcompare on Ubuntu 20.04. cloudcompare is 3D point cloud and mesh processing software

Introduction

In this tutorial we learn how to install cloudcompare on Ubuntu 20.04.

What is cloudcompare

cloudcompare is:

This is a 3D point cloud (and triangular mesh) processing software. It has been originally designed to perform comparison between two 3D points clouds (such as the ones obtained with a laser scanner) or between a point cloud and a triangular mesh.

It relies on a specific octree structure that enables great performances in this particular function. It was also meant to deal with huge point clouds (typically more than 10 millions points, and up to 120 millions with 2 GB of memory)

There are three methods to install cloudcompare on Ubuntu 20.04. We can use apt-get, apt and aptitude. In the following sections we will describe each method. You can choose one of them.

Install cloudcompare Using apt-get

Update apt database with apt-get using the following command.

sudo apt-get update

After updating apt database, We can install cloudcompare using apt-get by running the following command:

sudo apt-get -y install cloudcompare

Install cloudcompare Using apt

Update apt database with apt using the following command.

sudo apt update

After updating apt database, We can install cloudcompare using apt by running the following command:

sudo apt -y install cloudcompare

Install cloudcompare Using aptitude

If you want to follow this method, you might need to install aptitude first since aptitude is usually not installed by default on Ubuntu. Update apt database with aptitude using the following command.

sudo aptitude update

After updating apt database, We can install cloudcompare using aptitude by running the following command:

sudo aptitude -y install cloudcompare

How To Uninstall cloudcompare on Ubuntu 20.04

To uninstall only the cloudcompare package we can use the following command:

sudo apt-get remove cloudcompare

Uninstall cloudcompare And Its Dependencies

To uninstall cloudcompare and its dependencies that are no longer needed by Ubuntu 20.04, we can use the command below:

sudo apt-get -y autoremove cloudcompare

Remove cloudcompare Configurations and Data

To remove cloudcompare configuration and data from Ubuntu 20.04 we can use the following command:

sudo apt-get -y purge cloudcompare

Remove cloudcompare configuration, data, and all of its dependencies

We can use the following command to remove cloudcompare configurations, data and all of its dependencies, we can use the following command:

sudo apt-get -y autoremove --purge cloudcompare

References

Summary

In this tutorial we learn how to install cloudcompare package on Ubuntu 20.04 using different package management tools: apt, apt-get and aptitude.