Extracting structural components of concrete buildings from laser scanning point clouds from construction sites

<p><strong>Abstract.</strong> Ground objects can be regarded as a combination of structures of different geometries. Generally, the structural geometries can be grouped into linear, planar and scatter shapes. A good segmentation of objects into different structures can help to interpret the scanned scenes and provide essential clues for subsequent semantic interpretation. This is particularly true for the terrestrial static and mobile laser scanning data, where the geometric structures of objects are presented in detail due to the close scanning distances. In consideration of the large data volume and the large variation in point density of such point clouds, this paper presents a structural segmentation method of point clouds to efficiently decompose the ground objects into different structural components based on supervoxels of multiple sizes. First, supervoxels are generated with sizes adaptive to the point density with minimum occupied points and minimum size constraints. Then, the multi-size supervoxels are clustered into different components based on a structural labelling result obtained via Markov random field. Two datasets including terrestrial and mobile laser scanning point clouds were used to evaluate the performance of the proposed method. The results indicate that the proposed method can effectively and efficiently classify the point clouds into structurally meaningful segments with overall accuracies higher than 96%, even with largely varying point density.</p>

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Displacement and deformation study of engineering structures with the use of modern laser technologies

Open Geosciences ◽

10.1515/geo-2020-0051 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 12 (1) ◽

pp. 354-362

Author(s):

Jacek Sztubecki ◽

Adam Bujarkiewicz ◽

Karol Derejczyk ◽

Michał Przytuła

Keyword(s):

Laser Scanning ◽

Control Point ◽

Point Clouds ◽

Structural Components ◽

Engineering Structures ◽

Time Consumption ◽

Laser Technologies ◽

Analysis Of Results ◽

Reduced Time

AbstractModern measuring technologies give the means to perform tasks previously impossible with conventional methods. Their main advantages include reduced time consumption and higher measurement precision. Contemporary displacement and deformation studies of engineering structures often involve application of laser technologies, which are characterised by high precision of measurements. This article presents an analysis of results obtained from measurements of changes in the geometry of an engineering structure in which two complementary measuring technologies were used, i.e. tachymetric measurement with a Leica TDRA6000 laser station and laser scanning with a 3D FARO Focus S150 scanner. The utilised laser station enabled determination of 3D displacements in the local control point network installed on the studied structure as well as transfer of point clouds obtained from laser scans into a uniform coordinate system. The hybrid technology employed and the measurement method used ensured that the accuracy of the determined displacements and deformations of the structural components of the structure was high. The described measurement and result processing technology makes it possible to comprehensively analyse the geometric performance of structures, which consequently leads to the development of more complete conclusions concerning prevention of adverse effects of displacements and deformations in engineering structures.

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Disturbance Analysis in the Classification of Objects Obtained from Urban LiDAR Point Clouds with Convolutional Neural Networks

Remote Sensing ◽

10.3390/rs13112135 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 13 (11) ◽

pp. 2135

Author(s):

Jesús Balado ◽

Pedro Arias ◽

Henrique Lorenzo ◽

Adrián Meijide-Rodríguez

Keyword(s):

Laser Scanning ◽

Ambient Noise ◽

Point Clouds ◽

Density Variation ◽

Density Reduction ◽

Manual Intervention ◽

Point Density ◽

Disturbance Analysis ◽

Street Furniture

Mobile Laser Scanning (MLS) systems have proven their usefulness in the rapid and accurate acquisition of the urban environment. From the generated point clouds, street furniture can be extracted and classified without manual intervention. However, this process of acquisition and classification is not error-free, caused mainly by disturbances. This paper analyses the effect of three disturbances (point density variation, ambient noise, and occlusions) on the classification of urban objects in point clouds. From point clouds acquired in real case studies, synthetic disturbances are generated and added. The point density reduction is generated by downsampling in a voxel-wise distribution. The ambient noise is generated as random points within the bounding box of the object, and the occlusion is generated by eliminating points contained in a sphere. Samples with disturbances are classified by a pre-trained Convolutional Neural Network (CNN). The results showed different behaviours for each disturbance: density reduction affected objects depending on the object shape and dimensions, ambient noise depending on the volume of the object, while occlusions depended on their size and location. Finally, the CNN was re-trained with a percentage of synthetic samples with disturbances. An improvement in the performance of 10–40% was reported except for occlusions with a radius larger than 1 m.

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Linear-Based Incremental Co-Registration of MLS and Photogrammetric Point Clouds

Remote Sensing ◽

10.3390/rs13112195 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 13 (11) ◽

pp. 2195

Author(s):

Shiming Li ◽

Xuming Ge ◽

Shengfu Li ◽

Bo Xu ◽

Zhendong Wang

Keyword(s):

Point Cloud ◽

Laser Scanning ◽

Point Clouds ◽

Registration Method ◽

Cloud Data ◽

Linear Feature ◽

Data Registration ◽

Source Point ◽

Urban Remote Sensing ◽

Single Data

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.

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Terrestrial Laser Scanning for Vegetation Analyses with a Special Focus on Savannas

Remote Sensing ◽

10.3390/rs13030507 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 13 (3) ◽

pp. 507

Author(s):

Tasiyiwa Priscilla Muumbe ◽

Jussi Baade ◽

Jenia Singh ◽

Christiane Schmullius ◽

Christian Thau

Keyword(s):

Remote Sensing ◽

Vegetation Structure ◽

Laser Scanning ◽

Spatial Scales ◽

Terrestrial Laser Scanning ◽

Point Clouds ◽

Parameter Extraction ◽

Airborne Lidar ◽

Special Focus ◽

Vegetation Parameter

Savannas are heterogeneous ecosystems, composed of varied spatial combinations and proportions of woody and herbaceous vegetation. Most field-based inventory and remote sensing methods fail to account for the lower stratum vegetation (i.e., shrubs and grasses), and are thus underrepresenting the carbon storage potential of savanna ecosystems. For detailed analyses at the local scale, Terrestrial Laser Scanning (TLS) has proven to be a promising remote sensing technology over the past decade. Accordingly, several review articles already exist on the use of TLS for characterizing 3D vegetation structure. However, a gap exists on the spatial concentrations of TLS studies according to biome for accurate vegetation structure estimation. A comprehensive review was conducted through a meta-analysis of 113 relevant research articles using 18 attributes. The review covered a range of aspects, including the global distribution of TLS studies, parameters retrieved from TLS point clouds and retrieval methods. The review also examined the relationship between the TLS retrieval method and the overall accuracy in parameter extraction. To date, TLS has mainly been used to characterize vegetation in temperate, boreal/taiga and tropical forests, with only little emphasis on savannas. TLS studies in the savanna focused on the extraction of very few vegetation parameters (e.g., DBH and height) and did not consider the shrub contribution to the overall Above Ground Biomass (AGB). Future work should therefore focus on developing new and adjusting existing algorithms for vegetation parameter extraction in the savanna biome, improving predictive AGB models through 3D reconstructions of savanna trees and shrubs as well as quantifying AGB change through the application of multi-temporal TLS. The integration of data from various sources and platforms e.g., TLS with airborne LiDAR is recommended for improved vegetation parameter extraction (including AGB) at larger spatial scales. The review highlights the huge potential of TLS for accurate savanna vegetation extraction by discussing TLS opportunities, challenges and potential future research in the savanna biome.

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Individual tree extraction from urban mobile laser scanning point clouds using deep pointwise direction embedding

ISPRS Journal of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing ◽

10.1016/j.isprsjprs.2021.03.002 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 175 ◽

pp. 326-339

Author(s):

Haifeng Luo ◽

Kourosh Khoshelham ◽

Chongcheng Chen ◽

Hanxian He

Keyword(s):

Laser Scanning ◽

Point Clouds ◽

Individual Tree ◽

Tree Extraction

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Revealing Changes in the Stem Form and Volume Allocation in Diverse Boreal Forests Using Two-Date Terrestrial Laser Scanning

Forests ◽

10.3390/f12070835 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 12 (7) ◽

pp. 835

Author(s):

Ville Luoma ◽

Tuomas Yrttimaa ◽

Ville Kankare ◽

Ninni Saarinen ◽

Jiri Pyörälä ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Tree Growth ◽

Point Cloud ◽

Laser Scanning ◽

Terrestrial Laser Scanning ◽

Point Clouds ◽

Stem Volume ◽

Accurate Information ◽

Stem Form ◽

Monitoring Period ◽

Significant Difference

Tree growth is a multidimensional process that is affected by several factors. There is a continuous demand for improved information on tree growth and the ecological traits controlling it. This study aims at providing new approaches to improve ecological understanding of tree growth by the means of terrestrial laser scanning (TLS). Changes in tree stem form and stem volume allocation were investigated during a five-year monitoring period. In total, a selection of attributes from 736 trees from 37 sample plots representing different forest structures were extracted from taper curves derived from two-date TLS point clouds. The results of this study showed the capability of point cloud-based methods in detecting changes in the stem form and volume allocation. In addition, the results showed a significant difference between different forest structures in how relative stem volume and logwood volume increased during the monitoring period. Along with contributing to providing more accurate information for monitoring purposes in general, the findings of this study showed the ability and many possibilities of point cloud-based method to characterize changes in living organisms in particular, which further promote the feasibility of using point clouds as an observation method also in ecological studies.

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BIM Supported Surveying and Imaging Combination for Heritage Conservation

Remote Sensing ◽

10.3390/rs13081584 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 13 (8) ◽

pp. 1584

Author(s):

Pedro Martín-Lerones ◽

David Olmedo ◽

Ana López-Vidal ◽

Jaime Gómez-García-Bermejo ◽

Eduardo Zalama

Keyword(s):

Laser Scanning ◽

Point Clouds ◽

Cloud Data ◽

Industry Foundation Classes ◽

3D Point Clouds ◽

Conservation Actions ◽

Heritage Building ◽

2D Imaging ◽

Digital Survey ◽

Level 2

As the basis for analysis and management of heritage assets, 3D laser scanning and photogrammetric 3D reconstruction have been probed as adequate techniques for point cloud data acquisition. The European Directive 2014/24/EU imposes BIM Level 2 for government centrally procured projects as a collaborative process of producing federated discipline-specific models. Although BIM software resources are intensified and increasingly growing, distinct specifications for heritage (H-BIM) are essential to driving particular processes and tools to efficiency shifting from point clouds to meaningful information ready to be exchanged using non-proprietary formats, such as Industry Foundation Classes (IFC). This paper details a procedure for processing enriched 3D point clouds into the REVIT software package due to its worldwide popularity and how closely it integrates with the BIM concept. The procedure will be additionally supported by a tailored plug-in to make high-quality 3D digital survey datasets usable together with 2D imaging, enhancing the capability to depict contextualized important graphical data to properly planning conservation actions. As a practical example, a 2D/3D enhanced combination is worked to accurately include into a BIM project, the length, orientation, and width of a big crack on the walls of the Castle of Torrelobatón (Spain) as a representative heritage building.

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Leveraging TLS as a Calibration and Validation Tool for MLS and ULS Mapping of Savanna Structure and Biomass at Landscape-Scales

Remote Sensing ◽

10.3390/rs13020257 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 13 (2) ◽

pp. 257 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Shaun R. Levick ◽

Tim Whiteside ◽

David A. Loewensteiner ◽

Mitchel Rudge ◽

Renee Bartolo

Keyword(s):

Remote Sensing ◽

Vegetation Structure ◽

Laser Scanning ◽

Canopy Cover ◽

Structural Diversity ◽

Point Clouds ◽

Large Area ◽

Calibration And Validation ◽

Savanna Vegetation ◽

Landscape Scales

Savanna ecosystems are challenging to map and monitor as their vegetation is highly dynamic in space and time. Understanding the structural diversity and biomass distribution of savanna vegetation requires high-resolution measurements over large areas and at regular time intervals. These requirements cannot currently be met through field-based inventories nor spaceborne satellite remote sensing alone. UAV-based remote sensing offers potential as an intermediate scaling tool, providing acquisition flexibility and cost-effectiveness. Yet despite the increased availability of lightweight LiDAR payloads, the suitability of UAV-based LiDAR for mapping and monitoring savanna 3D vegetation structure is not well established. We mapped a 1 ha savanna plot with terrestrial-, mobile- and UAV-based laser scanning (TLS, MLS, and ULS), in conjunction with a traditional field-based inventory (n = 572 stems > 0.03 m). We treated the TLS dataset as the gold standard against which we evaluated the degree of complementarity and divergence of structural metrics from MLS and ULS. Sensitivity analysis showed that MLS and ULS canopy height models (CHMs) did not differ significantly from TLS-derived models at spatial resolutions greater than 2 m and 4 m respectively. Statistical comparison of the resulting point clouds showed minor over- and under-estimation of woody canopy cover by MLS and ULS, respectively. Individual stem locations and DBH measurements from the field inventory were well replicated by the TLS survey (R2 = 0.89, RMSE = 0.024 m), which estimated above-ground woody biomass to be 7% greater than field-inventory estimates (44.21 Mg ha−1 vs 41.08 Mg ha−1). Stem DBH could not be reliably estimated directly from the MLS or ULS, nor indirectly through allometric scaling with crown attributes (R2 = 0.36, RMSE = 0.075 m). MLS and ULS show strong potential for providing rapid and larger area capture of savanna vegetation structure at resolutions suitable for many ecological investigations; however, our results underscore the necessity of nesting TLS sampling within these surveys to quantify uncertainty. Complementing large area MLS and ULS surveys with TLS sampling will expand our options for the calibration and validation of multiple spaceborne LiDAR, SAR, and optical missions.

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An Adaptive Surface Interpolation Filter Using Cloth Simulation and Relief Amplitude for Airborne Laser Scanning Data

Remote Sensing ◽

10.3390/rs13152938 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 13 (15) ◽

pp. 2938

Author(s):

Feng Li ◽

Haihong Zhu ◽

Zhenwei Luo ◽

Hang Shen ◽

Lin Li

Keyword(s):

Laser Scanning ◽

Point Clouds ◽

Airborne Laser Scanning ◽

Superior Performance ◽

Cloth Simulation ◽

Cloud Data ◽

Interpolation Filter ◽

Landscape Characteristics ◽

Surface Interpolation ◽

Airborne Laser

Separating point clouds into ground and nonground points is an essential step in the processing of airborne laser scanning (ALS) data for various applications. Interpolation-based filtering algorithms have been commonly used for filtering ALS point cloud data. However, most conventional interpolation-based algorithms have exhibited a drawback in terms of retaining abrupt terrain characteristics, resulting in poor algorithmic precision in these regions. To overcome this drawback, this paper proposes an improved adaptive surface interpolation filter with a multilevel hierarchy by using a cloth simulation and relief amplitude. This method uses three hierarchy levels of provisional digital elevation model (DEM) raster surfaces with thin plate spline (TPS) interpolation to separate ground points from unclassified points based on adaptive residual thresholds. A cloth simulation algorithm is adopted to generate sufficient effective initial ground seeds for constructing topographic surfaces with high quality. Residual thresholds are adaptively constructed by the relief amplitude of the examined area to capture complex landscape characteristics during the classification process. Fifteen samples from the International Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ISPRS) commission are used to assess the performance of the proposed algorithm. The experimental results indicate that the proposed method can produce satisfying results in both flat areas and steep areas. In a comparison with other approaches, this method demonstrates its superior performance in terms of filtering results with the lowest omission error rate; in particular, the proposed approach retains discontinuous terrain features with steep slopes and terraces.

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