Comparison
An Autodesk ReCap alternative you buy once
Neurones 3D is an Autodesk ReCap alternative for people who would rather buy their point cloud software once than rent it. It opens E57, LAS and LAZ directly, runs fully offline, and its free viewer runs every process. If your work ends in Revit or AutoCAD as an attached .rcp cloud, ReCap remains the natural route.
By Dr. Florent Poux, 3D Geodata Academy · Updated
At a glance
Short statements, each one checkable. Where there is a number, it was measured, and the guides say on what.
- Checked 24 September 2026. ReCap Pro was listed on Capterra at $45 a month or $340 a year; some of its functions, such as cloud Scan-to-Mesh, consume Autodesk Flex tokens.
- N3D is not a subscription: a paid edition is one payment for an offline key that does not expire, and renewing is optional.
- The free N3D viewer opens, views and runs every process, with no account and no trial clock; writing results out needs a paid edition.
- N3D opens E57 directly, multi-scan with poses applied: a 127.8 million point, 7.9 GB file in about 22 s.
- It opens LAS, LAZ, COPC, PLY, PCD and ASCII too; a 43.5 million point LAS in about 1.2 s.
- It runs fully offline: no account, no cloud processing, no telemetry, and the licence is checked on the machine.
- It does not read or write Autodesk’s .rcp / .rcs, and it does not write DWG; drawings go out as DXF R2000, PDF and SVG.
- It draws dimensioned floor plans with sections and elevations automatically, and measures a scan against an IFC model to the triangle.
Subscription or one payment, and what each gets you
Paying for it: subscription against one payment
As published on 24 September 2026, Autodesk ReCap Pro is listed on Capterra at $45 a month or $340 a year. On top of that, some functions, such as cloud Scan-to-Mesh, consume Autodesk Flex tokens, as Autodesk’s own support article Recap Pro requests tokens when using some functionalities explains.
Neurones 3D is sold differently. Each paid edition is one payment for an offline key that does not expire. A key covers every build released in the twelve months after purchase, and those builds keep working for good; renewing for newer builds is optional. Before any of that, the free viewer opens your files and runs every process (classification, the ground filter, measurement, sections, the floor plan preview, change detection) with no account and no trial clock. Paying unlocks writing the results out. Purchasing opens at launch.
Opening E57 and LAS directly
As published on 24 September 2026, Revit and AutoCAD attach point clouds as .rcp / .rcs, so an E57 or LAS delivery is usually converted in ReCap first. N3D does not need that step: drop the E57 on the window and it opens, multi-scan with poses applied and panoramas you can stand in. A 127.8 million point, 7.9 GB E57 opens in about 22 s; the index is cached locally and memory-mapped back, so later opens take about a second. LAS, LAZ, COPC, PLY, PCD and ASCII files open the same way, and a cloud larger than the machine’s RAM still opens, because the index is built out of core.
What ReCap does that N3D does not
Be clear about the gap before you switch.
- Native .rcp / .rcs. N3D neither reads nor writes them. If your deliverable is a point cloud attached inside Revit or AutoCAD, you need a tool that writes those formats.
- The Autodesk ecosystem. ReCap belongs to the same family as Revit and AutoCAD. N3D is a separate Windows program with no Autodesk integration.
- DWG. N3D does not write DWG: its specification is not published and the only open library is LGPL, which N3D’s permissive-only licence policy excludes. It writes DXF R2000, which AutoCAD opens, plus PDF and SVG.
- Platforms. N3D is Windows only.
For anything else ReCap offers beyond what is listed here, see Autodesk’s documentation; this page compares only what we checked.
What N3D adds
N3D is built to turn the cloud into deliverables, offline:
- Floor plans, sections and elevations, drawn automatically and dimensioned to ISO drawing standards, as DXF, PDF and SVG. On a 43 million point survey: 42 spaces and 21 files in 1.0 s.
- Scan against model. An IFC model loaded beside the scan is measured to its triangles, with conformance bands and a per-zone as-built review.
- Classification. Four trained models (indoor, outdoor aerial LiDAR, powerline, streetscape) ship in every build, each writing a per-point confidence.
- Terrain and change. A ground filter at F1 90.3 % against IGN LiDAR HD, terrain rasters and contours, and M3C2 change detection.
- Reports as self-contained HTML with a provenance block.
Side by side
| Autodesk ReCap Pro | Neurones 3D | |
|---|---|---|
| How it is sold | $45/month or $340/year (Capterra, 24 Sep 2026) | One payment per edition; free viewer |
| Extra usage charges | Flex tokens for some functions, such as cloud Scan-to-Mesh | None |
| Works offline | see their docs | Yes, fully; no account |
| Opens E57 and LAS | Yes, converted to .rcp / .rcs | Yes, directly |
| Writes .rcp / .rcs for Revit and AutoCAD | Yes | No |
| Automatic floor plans to DXF | see their docs | Yes |
| Trained classifiers built in | see their docs | Yes, four |
| Platforms | see their docs | Windows only |
Using both
If your team models in Revit, a sensible split is to open, classify, measure and draw in N3D, and keep ReCap for the step that attaches the cloud to the Autodesk model. The DXF drawings from N3D go straight into AutoCAD, and the room table and GIS layers go to whoever models next.
Every tool, side by side
The full comparison, tool by tool, with the price, the licence and a sourced cell for each capability, is on point cloud software compared.
Questions
Is there an alternative to Autodesk ReCap without a subscription?
Yes. Neurones 3D is sold as a one-time licence: one payment for an offline key that does not expire, with optional renewal for newer builds. Its free viewer opens E57, LAS and LAZ and runs every process before you pay anything.
Can N3D create RCP or RCS files for Revit and AutoCAD?
No. N3D neither reads nor writes .rcp or .rcs. It writes point clouds as LAS, PLY, CSV, a USD stage or a web viewer, and drawings as DXF R2000, PDF and SVG. To attach a cloud in Revit or AutoCAD as .rcp or .rcs you still need a tool that writes those formats.
Can I open an E57 file without ReCap?
Yes. N3D opens E57 directly, including multi-scan files with their poses applied and the embedded 360° panoramas you can stand in. A 127.8 million point, 7.9 GB E57 opens in about 22 s, and later opens reuse a local index in about a second.
Does N3D work offline?
Entirely. It has no account, no cloud processing and no telemetry, and the licence key is an Ed25519 signature checked on your machine, with no activation server.
Can I use N3D drawings in AutoCAD?
Yes, as DXF. Floor plans, sections and elevations are written as DXF R2000 in metres at 1:1, with real dimension entities and ISO 13567 layer names. DWG is not written: its specification is not published and the only open library is LGPL, which N3D’s permissive-only licence policy excludes.
Does N3D run on Mac?
No. N3D is Windows only today, on Windows 10 and 11 (64-bit).
The guides behind it
Each guide gives the menu path, the steps, the command-line equivalent and the limits.