Point clouds are notoriously difficult to work with but increasingly becoming a standard of practice, due to the increasing popularity of laser scanners for modeling.  Autodesk has collaborated with FARO to make their FARO Laser Scanner the preferred input method for point-cloud scans, and add the necessary tools to AutoCAD2011 to bring it all together.

“As the use of laser scanners has become more widespread by our customers they ve asked for direct import and support for large point clouds in AutoCAD ” said Gonzalo Martinez director of strategic research Autodesk. “For the past year we have been working closely with FARO who assisted with the design of the feature and provided us with crucial feedback for the direct integration of point cloud data. We are thrilled to bring this functionality to our customers.”

via FARO and Autodesk Collaborate to Add Support for Point Cloud Data to AutoCAD 2011 – MarketWatch.