Point cloud data hierarchy

A method for presenting views of a point data set, comprising:

• storing data on a storage system that is representative of a point cloud comprising a number of associated points;
• storing a resolution gradient on the storage system;
• octree mesh resolution data sectors on the storage system;
• automatically and deterministically organizing the data into an octree hierarchy of data sectors, each of which is representative of one or more of the points at a given octree mesh resolution;
• retrieving the resolution gradient and the octree mesh resolution data sectors from the storage system;
• receiving a command from a user of a user interface to present an image based at least in part upon a selected viewing perspective origin of the frustum, a vector of the frustum originating at the origin of the frustum and a field of view of the frustum;
• assembling the image based at least in part upon the selected origin and vector originating at the origin, the image comprising a plurality of data sectors pulled from the octree hierarchy, wherein the image is based on the resolution gradient retrieved from the storage system and the resolution gradient is selected to form a first gradient with a descending resolution in a direction outward from the selected viewing perspective origin along the vector;
• and
• tuning, by an operator, the resolution gradient between at least two of (i) to have linear change in resolution from back to front, (ii) to be nonlinear and (iii) to be stepwise at certain distance thresholds.