PCD (Point Cloud Data) file format is used inside Point Cloud Library (PCL).

The PCD file format is not meant to reinvent the wheel, but rather to complement existing file formats that for one reason or another did not/do not support some of the extensions that PCL brings to n-D point cloud processing. PCD is not the first file type to support 3D point cloud data. The computer graphics and computational geometry communities in particular, have created numerous formats to describe arbitrary polygons and point clouds acquired using laser scanners. Some of these formats include: