What Is CartaX Studio? A Guide to Local Conversion and Production

CartaX Studio is a desktop tool that converts and processes your raw field data into formats CartaX can display — on your own machine. It is the local arm of the CartaX platform, not a standalone photogrammetry suite. It does two things:

• Conversion — turns the LAS/LAZ point cloud or GeoTIFF orthophoto/DEM you already have into the browser-ready format.
• Production — builds an orthophoto, an elevation model (DSM/DTM), a point cloud and a textured 3D model from drone photos. You run production either on this computer or in the GPU-accelerated CartaX cloud; both start from the same wizard. Without installing Studio you can start the same cloud production from the Photogrammetry tab of the upload dialog in the web app.

The converters ship with the installer: there is no Docker, WSL or separate GPU driver to install.

The most important difference is economic: local conversion and local production spend no processing tokens. Only the resulting outputs count against your storage quota once they are uploaded to your workspace. Cloud production is billed in tokens (see below).

What it does

Conversion (the Convert button)

Input	Output	What you get in CartaX
LAS / LAZ point cloud	Octree (point cloud tree)	Smooth 3D viewing in the browser, measurement, cross-sections
GeoTIFF orthophoto / DEM	COG (Cloud Optimized GeoTIFF)	A georeferenced raster layer on the map, elevation readout

Production (the Create button)

The input is a flight's photo folder (JPG/PNG/TIF; subfolders and RTK .MRK records are found automatically). The outputs you tick are produced together in a single run:

Output	Format	What you get in CartaX
Orthophoto	GeoTIFF → COG	A raster layer on the map
DEM (DSM/DTM)	GeoTIFF → COG	The Measurement elevation: Surface / DSM / DTM selector on the map; elevation readout and volume calculation use these models
Point cloud	LAZ → Octree	3D viewing, measurement, cross-sections; optional AI classification (ground / vegetation / building / road / vehicle)
Textured 3D model	3D Tiles 1.1	A textured 3D model on the map

Alongside production, GCP (ground control point) marking and an accuracy report are built into Studio: you provide your GCP file, click the points on the photos, and the report is written to the delivery folder. On RTK flights the .MRK records are evaluated automatically.

The local production engines are not part of the installer; they are downloaded once from inside the app on your first production (~0.4 GB). Cloud production needs no engine download.

Why work locally?

• No tokens are spent. Cloud conversion and cloud production charge tokens based on data volume; local processing does not.
• Raw data is not uploaded. Instead of uploading a 40 GB LAZ or thousands of photos, you upload only the output produced from them — the format the browser opens directly.
• Data is processed without leaving your machine. The raw files stay with you; only the output is uploaded. The outputs are also written on your computer under Documents / CartaX Studio in product folders (Orthophoto, DEM, Point Cloud, Mesh, Report).

The trade-off is that the work uses your machine's CPU, memory and disk. Photogrammetry is the heaviest step: hundreds of photos can take a few hours. Studio uses all cores; on machines with an NVIDIA GPU, dense point-cloud reconstruction moves to the GPU. Before a run the wizard measures free disk and memory; if they are insufficient the local button is disabled and the same job can be sent to the cloud with one click.

Cloud production

The same wizard has a Produce in the cloud button. Photos are uploaded to CartaX, production runs on CartaX's NVIDIA GPU cloud machines, and the outputs land directly in your project. The same job can also be sent from the Photogrammetry tab of the upload dialog in the web app. When to prefer it:

• Your computer is not enough (engines not downloaded, insufficient disk/memory), or you do not want to keep it busy for hours.
• You want the dense point cloud computed on a GPU and AI classification; or outputs that are only produced in the cloud (for example Gaussian Splatting scenes).

Things to know:

• Billed in tokens. As soon as your photo count is known, the wizard shows the estimated tokens and your available balance; if tokens are short it warns before the job starts and links to token purchase in the web app. The charge follows the total megapixels processed (photo count × frame resolution); the number of selected outputs does not change the price. Production runs at a single quality tier (High).
• Cloud production is not available on the Free plan; on the Professional plan a single job may carry up to 2,000 photos. For larger projects talk to us about the Enterprise plan.
• Point cloud classification in the cloud runs on an AI model; ground, vegetation, building, road and vehicle classes are assigned automatically.
• Cloud jobs are tracked in Studio's Jobs list and on the CartaX Studio card in the web app; once the photos are uploaded you can shut your computer down — the job keeps running in the cloud.

Installation

Studio is published for Windows and Linux. (macOS is not targeted.)

Windows

1. Download the installer from CartaX Studio → Download inside the app.
2. Run it. Because the build is unsigned, SmartScreen shows "Windows protected your PC": choose More info → Run anyway.
3. Nothing extra is needed on Windows 11. On Windows 10 the Microsoft Edge WebView2 Runtime must be installed.
4. Open the app and sign in with your CartaX account.

Linux

1. Download the .deb package.
2. Install it: sudo apt install ./cartax-studio_*.deb
3. The app window needs webkit2gtk-4.1, libgtk-3, librsvg2 and libayatana-appindicator3; most desktop distributions already have them.
4. Open the app and sign in with your CartaX account.

Note: builds are not code-signed yet. The operating system warning is expected behaviour and will disappear once signing is in place. When a new version is released Studio shows a banner; its Download button opens the installer in your browser and you install it by hand.

The workflow

1. Sign in. Studio opens your system browser; once you sign in with your CartaX account you return to the app. Studio knows where to upload from your account.
2. Pick or create a project. Outputs land under this project.
3. Press Convert or Create.
   • Convert: choose a LAS/LAZ or GeoTIFF; Studio detects the format itself.
   • Create: choose the photo folder, tick the outputs and quality, add a GCP file if you have one, choose the delivery coordinate system, then Produce on this computer or Produce in the cloud.
4. Watch. The Jobs screen shows overall progress on a single card; open it to see each job's stages (photogrammetry, classification, conversion, upload), elapsed time and percentage. You can queue several jobs; processing runs one at a time, uploads run in parallel.
5. Upload. When production or conversion finishes, the output is uploaded to your workspace automatically; the counter advances by files and bytes ("Uploading to web 12/770 · 340 MB / 1.2 GB").

While the upload is in flight, the CartaX Studio card in the CartaX web app shows the job as running; once it completes the layer becomes available on the map. You can suspend a running job instantly with Pause to free the computer for other work and continue it with Resume. If Studio is closed or the computer restarts, local production jobs resume from the stage they reached at the next launch. If the upload fails on a network error the products are ready on your computer; Retry upload on the card repeats only the web upload, production is not re-run.

Common questions

I get a "plan_forbidden" error when signing in. Studio is part of the Professional plan. Free accounts cannot open a session; sign-in works once you upgrade.

The "Produce on this computer" button is disabled. The production engines have not been downloaded yet, or free disk/memory is insufficient for this job; hovering the button shows the reason. Download the engines, or send the job with Produce in the cloud.

Production takes very long. Photogrammetry depends on CPU and GPU; a machine with an NVIDIA GPU is noticeably faster. Drop outputs you do not need (3D model, classification), or send the job to the GPU-accelerated cloud. The detailed run log is under Report in the delivery folder.

Conversion/production finished but the layer is not on the map. Uploading is a separate step — make sure the job reached the "uploaded" state in Studio, then refresh the project in the web app.

DSM/DTM cannot be selected on the map. The measurement-elevation selector appears only for orthophotos whose production had the DEM (DSM/DTM) output ticked. If you produced only the orthophoto, the Surface (terrain) option remains.

Related guides

• DSM vs DTM: what is the difference?
• What are LAS and LAZ files?
• What is a Cloud Optimized GeoTIFF?
• Supported formats and limits