CloudCompare is a 3D point cloud (and triangular mesh) editing and processing software.Originally, it has been designed to perform direct comparison between dense 3D point clouds. It relies on a specificoctree structure that enables great performances1 when performing this kind of task. Moreover, as most point cloudswere acquired by terrestrial laser scanners, CloudCompare was meant to deal with huge point clouds on a standardlaptop - typically more than 10 million points (in 2005!). Soon after, comparison between a point cloud and a triangularmesh has been supported. Afterwards, many other point cloud processing algorithms have followed(registration, resampling, color/normal vectors/scalar fields management, statistics computation, sensor management,interactive or automatic segmentation, etc.) as well as display enhancement tools (custom color ramps, color & normalvectors handling, calibrated pictures handling, OpenGL shaders, plugins, etc.).