Target-based terrestrial laser scan registration extended by target orientation

2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jannik Janßen ◽  
Heiner Kuhlmann ◽  
Christoph Holst
Keyword(s):  
Laser Scanning ◽  
Point Clouds ◽  
Black And White ◽  
Plane Orientation ◽  
Geometric Configurations ◽  
Standard Procedures ◽  
Scan Registration ◽  
Almost All ◽  
Automated Methods ◽  
Target Center

Abstract In almost all projects, in which terrestrial laser scanning is used, the scans must be registered after the data acquisition. Despite more and more new and automated methods for registration, the classical target-based registration is still one of the standard procedures. The advantages are obvious: independence from the scan object, the geometric configuration can often be influenced and registration results are easy to interpret. When plane black-and-white targets are used, the algorithm for estimating the target center fits a plane through the scan of a target, anyway. This information about the plane orientation has remained unused so far. Hence, including this information in the registration does not require any additional effort in the scanning process. In this paper, we extend the target-based registration by the plane orientation. We describe the required methodology, analyze the benefits in terms of precision and reliability and discuss in which cases the extension is useful and brings a relevant advantage. Based on simulations and two case studies we find out that especially for registrations with bad geometric configurations the extension brings a big advantage. The extension enables registrations that are much more precise. These are also visible on the registered point clouds. Thus, only a methodological change in the target-based registration improves its results.

scholarly journals CLASSIFICATION OF MOBILE LASER SCANNING POINT CLOUDS FROM HEIGHT FEATURES

2017 ◽  
Vol XLII-2/W7 ◽  
pp. 321-325 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Zheng ◽  
M. Lemmens ◽  
P. van Oosterom
Keyword(s):  
Laser Scanning ◽  
Point Clouds ◽  
3D Mapping ◽  
Automated Classification ◽  
Present Stage ◽  
Dense Point ◽  
Manual Processing ◽  
Automated Methods ◽  
Acquisition Method

The demand for 3D maps of cities and road networks is steadily growing and mobile laser scanning (MLS) systems are often the preferred geo-data acquisition method for capturing such scenes. Because MLS systems are mounted on cars or vans they can acquire billions of points of road scenes within a few hours of survey. Manual processing of point clouds is labour intensive and thus time consuming and expensive. Hence, the need for rapid and automated methods for 3D mapping of dense point clouds is growing exponentially. The last five years the research on automated 3D mapping of MLS data has tremendously intensified. In this paper, we present our work on automated classification of MLS point clouds. In the present stage of the research we exploited three features – two height components and one reflectance value, and achieved an overall accuracy of 73 %, which is really encouraging for further refining our approach.

scholarly journals ORTHOGRAPHIC REFLECTANCE IMAGE FOR PLANAR TARGET LOCALIZATION IN LOW DENSITY TLS POINT CLOUDS

2019 ◽  
Vol XLII-2/W13 ◽  
pp. 995-1000
Author(s):  
D. Guo ◽  
D. Yu ◽  
Y. Liang ◽  
C. Feng
Keyword(s):  
Laser Scanning ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Point Clouds ◽  
Target Localization ◽  
Low Density ◽  
Point Density ◽  
Least Squares Adjustment ◽  
Sample Interval ◽  
Orthographic Image ◽  
Target Center

<p><strong>Abstract.</strong> Point cloud registration is important and essential task for terrestrial laser scanning applications. Point clouds acquired at different positions exhibit significant variation in point density. Most registration methods implicitly assume dense and uniform distributed point clouds, which is hardly the case in large-scale surveying. The accuracy and robustness of feature extraction are greatly influenced by the point density, which undermines the feature-based registration methods. We show that the accuracy and robustness of target localization dramatically decline with decreasing point density. A methodology for localization of artificial planar targets in low density point clouds is presented. An orthographic image of the target is firstly generated and the potential position of the target center is interactively selected. Then the 3D position of the target center is estimated by a non-linear least squares adjustment. The presented methodology enables millimeter level accuracy of target localization in point clouds with 30mm sample interval. The robustness and effectiveness of the methodology is demonstrated by the experimental results.</p>

scholarly journals Fast registration of laser scans with 4-point congruent sets - what works and what doesn't

2014 ◽  
Vol II-3 ◽  
pp. 149-156 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. W. Theiler ◽  
J. D. Wegner ◽  
K. Schindler
Keyword(s):  
Laser Scanning ◽  
Error Function ◽  
Near Field ◽  
Point Clouds ◽  
What Works ◽  
Scan Registration ◽  
Field Bias ◽  
Indoor Scenarios ◽  
Automated Registration ◽  
Repeated Evaluation

Sampling-based algorithms in the mould of RANSAC have emerged as one of the most successful methods for the fully automated registration of point clouds acquired by terrestrial laser scanning (TLS). Sampling methods in conjunction with 3D keypoint extraction, have shown promising results, e.g. the recent K-4PCS (Theiler et al., 2013). However, they still exhibit certain improbable failures, and are computationally expensive and slow if the overlap between scans is low. Here, we examine several variations of the basic K-4PCS framework that have the potential to improve its runtime and robustness. Since the method is inherently parallelizable, straight-forward multi-threading already brings down runtimes to a practically acceptable level (seconds to minutes). At a conceptual level, replacing the RANSAC error function with the more principled MSAC function (Torr and Zisserman, 2000) and introducing a minimum-distance prior to counter the near-field bias reduce failure rates by a factor of up to 4. On the other hand, replacing the repeated evaluation of the RANSAC error function with a voting scheme over the transformation parameters proved not to be generally applicable for the scan registration problem. All these possible extensions are tested experimentally on multiple challenging outdoor and indoor scenarios.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

Forests ◽  
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.

scholarly journals BIM Supported Surveying and Imaging Combination for Heritage Conservation

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.

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

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 257 ◽  
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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