Terrestrial laser scanners (TLSs) are instruments that can measure 3D coordinates
of objects at high speed using a laser, resulting in high density 3D point cloud data.
The Dimensional Metrology Group (DMG) at NIST performed research to support the
development of documentary standards within ASTM E57 committee on 3D imaging systems.
This led to the publication of the ASTM E3125-2017 standard on point-to-point distance
performance evaluation of 3D imaging systems such as TLSs. To ensure that the data from
different TLS systems are processed identically, the ASTM E3125- 2017 mandates the use
of a common algorithm to determine the center of a sphere from point cloud data. This
paper describes this algorithm and software code is provided as a download.
Software to Determine Sphere Center from Terrestrial Laser Scanner Data per ASTM
Standard E3125-17