# Compute Normals

Surface normals indicate the direction that a surface faces. Tools like LiDARSnap use normals to perform optimization, however normals can also be useful when visualized, such as with manual classification or extraction work. 

Once computed, you can visualize the cloud by surface normals:

<figure><img src="https://2222094320-files.gitbook.io/~/files/v0/b/gitbook-x-prod.appspot.com/o/spaces%2FdEevfLZRIk38LUPwDa4V%2Fuploads%2FlInQ0vDWpQnl8fmcjE2Z%2Fimage.png?alt=media&#x26;token=88802f8c-6186-4cc7-ae96-a05b241fa35b" alt=""><figcaption></figcaption></figure>

Surfaces will be colored based on the 3-dimensional direction that they face:

<figure><img src="https://2222094320-files.gitbook.io/~/files/v0/b/gitbook-x-prod.appspot.com/o/spaces%2FdEevfLZRIk38LUPwDa4V%2Fuploads%2F90JCROaYJeAa9gsVNGPX%2Fimage.png?alt=media&#x26;token=9613529b-587f-4130-9d66-0a0f8f49cca6" alt=""><figcaption></figcaption></figure>

Normal vector attributes can be exported in place of RGB values. See the [Export menu](https://docs.phoenixlidar.com/spatialexplorer-8-and-9/user-interface/toolbars/workflow/export) for more details.&#x20;