scholarly journals Advanced Methods for Point Cloud Processing and Simplification

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (10) ◽  
pp. 3340 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pavel Chmelar ◽  
Lubos Rejfek ◽  
Tan N. Nguyen ◽  
Duy-Hung Ha

Nowadays, mobile robot exploration needs a rangefinder to obtain a large number of measurement points to achieve a detailed and precise description of a surrounding area and objects, which is called the point cloud. However, a single point cloud scan does not cover the whole area, so multiple point cloud scans must be acquired and compared together to find the right matching between them in a process called registration method. This method requires further processing and places high demands on memory consumption, especially for small embedded devices in mobile robots. This paper describes a novel method to reduce the burden of processing for multiple point cloud scans. We introduce our approach to preprocess an input point cloud in order to detect planar surfaces, simplify space description, fill gaps in point clouds, and get important space features. All of these processes are achieved by applying advanced image processing methods in combination with the quantization of physical space points. The results show the reliability of our approach to detect close parallel walls with suitable parameter settings. More importantly, planar surface detection shows a 99% decrease in necessary descriptive points almost in all cases. This proposed approach is verified on the real indoor point clouds.

2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 61
Author(s):  
Miloš Prokop ◽  
Salman Ahmed Shaikh ◽  
Kyoung-Sook Kim

Modern robotic exploratory strategies assume multi-agent cooperation that raises a need for an effective exchange of acquired scans of the environment with the absence of a reliable global positioning system. In such situations, agents compare the scans of the outside world to determine if they overlap in some region, and if they do so, they determine the right matching between them. The process of matching multiple point-cloud scans is called point-cloud registration. Using the existing point-cloud registration approaches, a good match between any two-point-clouds is achieved if and only if there exists a large overlap between them, however, this limits the advantage of using multiple robots, for instance, for time-effective 3D mapping. Hence, a point-cloud registration approach is highly desirable if it can work with low overlapping scans. This work proposes a novel solution for the point-cloud registration problem with a very low overlapping area between the two scans. In doing so, no initial relative positions of the point-clouds are assumed. Most of the state-of-the-art point-cloud registration approaches iteratively match keypoints in the scans, which is computationally expensive. In contrast to the traditional approaches, a more efficient line-features-based point-cloud registration approach is proposed in this work. This approach, besides reducing the computational cost, avoids the problem of high false-positive rate of existing keypoint detection algorithms, which becomes especially significant in low overlapping point-cloud registration. The effectiveness of the proposed approach is demonstrated with the help of experiments.


Author(s):  
T. Sumi ◽  
H. Date ◽  
S. Kanai

In this paper, an efficient and robust registration method of multiple point clouds is proposed. In our research, we assume that point clouds are acquired by Terrestrial Laser Scanning (TLS) systems, and the scanned environments have a relatively flat base plane such as the ground or a floor. Our method is based on an existing pairwise registration method based on point projection images, which can quickly register the point clouds under the above assumptions. In the method, sliced point clouds are projected onto the base plane, and a binary image with feature points is created. The registration is done by using feature points of the images based on the sample consensus strategy. In this paper, first, we improve the efficiency of the pairwise registration method by introducing height and occlusion information to the image. Then, a validity check method of pairwise registration using space-classified images is proposed to avoid exhaustive pairwise registration in the multiple point cloud registration process. Finally, an efficient multiple point cloud registration algorithm based on progressive creation of a point cloud connectivity graph using iterative rough and precise pairwise registration and the validity check method is proposed. The effectiveness of our method is shown through its application to three datasets of outdoor environments.


2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (11) ◽  
pp. 647
Author(s):  
Cedrique Fotsing ◽  
Nafissetou Nziengam ◽  
Christophe Bobda

Point cloud registration combines multiple point cloud data sets collected from different positions using the same or different devices to form a single point cloud within a single coordinate system. Point cloud registration is usually achieved through spatial transformations that align and merge multiple point clouds into a single globally consistent model. In this paper, we present a new segmentation-based approach for point cloud registration. Our method consists of extracting plane structures from point clouds and then, using the 4-Point Congruent Sets (4PCS) technique, we estimate transformations that align the plane structures. Instead of a global alignment using all the points in the dataset, our method aligns 2-point clouds using their local plane structures. This considerably reduces the data size, computational workload, and execution time. Unlike conventional methods that seek to align the largest number of common points between entities, the new method aims to align the largest number of planes. Using partial point clouds of multiple real-world scenes, we demonstrate the superiority of our method compared to raw 4PCS in terms of quality of result (QoS) and execution time. Our method requires about half the execution time of 4PCS in all the tested datasets and produces better alignment of the point clouds.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (11) ◽  
pp. 2195
Author(s):  
Shiming Li ◽  
Xuming Ge ◽  
Shengfu Li ◽  
Bo Xu ◽  
Zhendong Wang

Today, mobile laser scanning and oblique photogrammetry are two standard urban remote sensing acquisition methods, and the cross-source point-cloud data obtained using these methods have significant differences and complementarity. Accurate co-registration can make up for the limitations of a single data source, but many existing registration methods face critical challenges. Therefore, in this paper, we propose a systematic incremental registration method that can successfully register MLS and photogrammetric point clouds in the presence of a large number of missing data, large variations in point density, and scale differences. The robustness of this method is due to its elimination of noise in the extracted linear features and its 2D incremental registration strategy. There are three main contributions of our work: (1) the development of an end-to-end automatic cross-source point-cloud registration method; (2) a way to effectively extract the linear feature and restore the scale; and (3) an incremental registration strategy that simplifies the complex registration process. The experimental results show that this method can successfully achieve cross-source data registration, while other methods have difficulty obtaining satisfactory registration results efficiently. Moreover, this method can be extended to more point-cloud sources.


Materials ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (6) ◽  
pp. 1563
Author(s):  
Ruibing Wu ◽  
Ziping Yu ◽  
Donghong Ding ◽  
Qinghua Lu ◽  
Zengxi Pan ◽  
...  

As promising technology with low requirements and high depositing efficiency, Wire Arc Additive Manufacturing (WAAM) can significantly reduce the repair cost and improve the formation quality of molds. To further improve the accuracy of WAAM in repairing molds, the point cloud model that expresses the spatial distribution and surface characteristics of the mold is proposed. Since the mold has a large size, it is necessary to be scanned multiple times, resulting in multiple point cloud models. The point cloud registration, such as the Iterative Closest Point (ICP) algorithm, then plays the role of merging multiple point cloud models to reconstruct a complete data model. However, using the ICP algorithm to merge large point clouds with a low-overlap area is inefficient, time-consuming, and unsatisfactory. Therefore, this paper provides the improved Offset Iterative Closest Point (OICP) algorithm, which is an online fast registration algorithm suitable for intelligent WAAM mold repair technology. The practicality and reliability of the algorithm are illustrated by the comparison results with the standard ICP algorithm and the three-coordinate measuring instrument in the Experimental Setup Section. The results are that the OICP algorithm is feasible for registrations with low overlap rates. For an overlap rate lower than 60% in our experiments, the traditional ICP algorithm failed, while the Root Mean Square (RMS) error reached 0.1 mm, and the rotation error was within 0.5 degrees, indicating the improvement of the proposed OICP algorithm.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (10) ◽  
pp. 1677 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ana Novo ◽  
Noelia Fariñas-Álvarez ◽  
Joaquin Martínez-Sánchez ◽  
Higinio González-Jorge ◽  
Henrique Lorenzo

The optimization of forest management in the surroundings of roads is a necessary task in term of wildfire prevention and the mitigation of their effects. One of the reasons why a forest fire spreads is the presence of contiguous flammable material, both horizontally and vertically and, thus, vegetation management becomes essential in preventive actions. This work presents a methodology to detect the continuity of vegetation based on aerial Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) point clouds, in combination with point cloud processing techniques. Horizontal continuity is determined by calculating Cover Canopy Fraction (CCF). The results obtained show 50% of shrubs presence and 33% of trees presence in the selected case of study, with an error of 5.71%. Regarding vertical continuity, a forest structure composed of a single stratum represents 81% of the zone. In addition, the vegetation located in areas around the roads were mapped, taking into consideration the distances established in the applicable law. Analyses show that risky areas range from a total of 0.12 ha in a 2 m buffer and 0.48 ha in a 10 m buffer, representing a 2.4% and 9.5% of the total study area, respectively.


2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (23) ◽  
pp. 2727 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ming Huang ◽  
Pengcheng Wei ◽  
Xianglei Liu

Plane segmentation is a basic yet important process in light detection and ranging (LiDAR) point cloud processing. The traditional point cloud plane segmentation algorithm is typically affected by the number of point clouds and the noise data, which results in slow segmentation efficiency and poor segmentation effect. Hence, an efficient encoding voxel-based segmentation (EVBS) algorithm based on a fast adjacent voxel search is proposed in this study. First, a binary octree algorithm is proposed to construct the voxel as the segmentation object and code the voxel, which can compute voxel features quickly and accurately. Second, a voxel-based region growing algorithm is proposed to cluster the corresponding voxel to perform the initial point cloud segmentation, which can improve the rationality of seed selection. Finally, a refining point method is proposed to solve the problem of under-segmentation in unlabeled voxels by judging the relationship between the points and the segmented plane. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed algorithm is better than the traditional algorithm in terms of computation time, extraction accuracy, and recall rate.


Sensors ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (20) ◽  
pp. 4569
Author(s):  
Joan R. Rosell-Polo ◽  
Eduard Gregorio ◽  
Jordi Llorens

In this editorial, we provide an overview of the content of the special issue on “Terrestrial Laser Scanning”. The aim of this Special Issue is to bring together innovative developments and applications of terrestrial laser scanning (TLS), understood in a broad sense. Thus, although most contributions mainly involve the use of laser-based systems, other alternative technologies that also allow for obtaining 3D point clouds for the measurement and the 3D characterization of terrestrial targets, such as photogrammetry, are also considered. The 15 published contributions are mainly focused on the applications of TLS to the following three topics: TLS performance and point cloud processing, applications to civil engineering, and applications to plant characterization.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (6) ◽  
pp. 942 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Rosaria De Blasiis ◽  
Alessandro Di Benedetto ◽  
Margherita Fiani

The surface conditions of road pavements, including the occurrence and severity of distresses present on the surface, are an important indicator of pavement performance. Periodic monitoring and condition assessment is an essential requirement for the safety of vehicles moving on that road and the wellbeing of people. The traditional characterization of the different types of distress often involves complex activities, sometimes inefficient and risky, as they interfere with road traffic. The mobile laser systems (MLS) are now widely used to acquire detailed information about the road surface in terms of a three-dimensional point cloud. Despite its increasing use, there are still no standards for the acquisition and processing of the data collected. The aim of our work was to develop a procedure for processing the data acquired by MLS, in order to identify the localized degradations that mostly affect safety. We have studied the data flow and implemented several processing algorithms to identify and quantify a few types of distresses, namely potholes and swells/shoves, starting from very dense point clouds. We have implemented data processing in four steps: (i) editing of the point cloud to extract only the points belonging to the road surface, (ii) determination of the road roughness as deviation in height of every single point of the cloud with respect to the modeled road surface, (iii) segmentation of the distress (iv) computation of the main geometric parameters of the distress in order to classify it by severity levels. The results obtained by the proposed methodology are promising. The procedures implemented have made it possible to correctly segmented and identify the types of distress to be analyzed, in accordance with the on-site inspections. The tests carried out have shown that the choice of the values of some parameters to give as input to the software is not trivial: the choice of some of them is based on considerations related to the nature of the data, for others, it derives from the distress to be segmented. Due to the different possible configurations of the various distresses it is better to choose these parameters according to the boundary conditions and not to impose default values. The test involved a 100-m long urban road segment, the surface of which was measured with an MLS installed on a vehicle that traveled the road at 10 km/h.


2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (5) ◽  
pp. 951 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yong Li ◽  
Guofeng Tong ◽  
Xiance Du ◽  
Xiang Yang ◽  
Jianjun Zhang ◽  
...  

3D point cloud classification has wide applications in the field of scene understanding. Point cloud classification based on points can more accurately segment the boundary region between adjacent objects. In this paper, a point cloud classification algorithm based on a single point multilevel features fusion and pyramid neighborhood optimization are proposed for a Airborne Laser Scanning (ALS) point cloud. First, the proposed algorithm determines the neighborhood region of each point, after which the features of each single point are extracted. For the characteristics of the ALS point cloud, two new feature descriptors are proposed, i.e., a normal angle distribution histogram and latitude sampling histogram. Following this, multilevel features of a single point are constructed by multi-resolution of the point cloud and multi-neighborhood spaces. Next, the features are trained by the Support Vector Machine based on a Gaussian kernel function, and the points are classified by the trained model. Finally, a classification results optimization method based on a multi-scale pyramid neighborhood constructed by a multi-resolution point cloud is used. In the experiment, the algorithm is tested by a public dataset. The experimental results show that the proposed algorithm can effectively classify large-scale ALS point clouds. Compared with the existing algorithms, the proposed algorithm has a better classification performance.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document