scholarly journals Field Information Modeling (FIM)™: Best Practices using Point Clouds

Author(s):  
Reza Maalek

This study presents established methods, along with new algorithmic developments, to automate the point cloud processing within the Field Information Modeling (FIM)™ framework. More specifically, given an n-D designed information model, and the point cloud’s spatial uncertainty, the problem of automatic assignment of the point clouds to their corresponding elements within the designed model is considered. The methods addressed two classes of field conditions, namely, (i) negligible construction errors; and (ii) existence of construction errors. The emphasis was given to describing and defining the assumptions in each method and shed light on some of their potentials and limitations in practical settings. Considering the shortcomings of current point cloud processing frameworks, three new and generic algorithms were developed to help solve the point cloud to model assignment in field conditions with both negligible, and existence (or speculation) of construction errors. The effectiveness of the new methods was demonstrated in real-world point clouds, acquired from construction projects, with promising results.

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (5) ◽  
pp. 967
Author(s):  
Reza Maalek

This study presented established methods, along with new algorithmic developments, to automate point cloud processing in support of the Field Information Modeling (FIM)™ framework. More specifically, given a multi-dimensional (n-D) designed information model, and the point cloud’s spatial uncertainty, the problem of automatic assignment of point clouds to their corresponding model elements was considered. The methods addressed two classes of field conditions, namely (i) negligible construction errors and (ii) the existence of construction errors. Emphasis was given to defining the assumptions, potentials, and limitations of each method in practical settings. Considering the shortcomings of current frameworks, three generic algorithms were designed to address the point-cloud-to-model assignment. The algorithms include new developments for (i) point cloud vs. model comparison (negligible construction errors), (ii) robust point neighborhood definition, and (iii) Monte-Carlo-based point-cloud-to-model surface hypothesis testing (existence of construction errors). The effectiveness of the new methods was demonstrated in real-world point clouds, acquired from construction projects, with promising results. For the overall problem of point-cloud-to-model assignment, the proposed point cloud vs. model and point-cloud-to-model hypothesis testing methods achieved F-measures of 99.3% and 98.4%, respectively, on real-world datasets.


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.


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 37 (6) ◽  
pp. 1019-1027
Author(s):  
Ali Saglam ◽  
Hasan B. Makineci ◽  
Ömer K. Baykan ◽  
Nurdan Akhan Baykan

Point cloud processing is a struggled field because the points in the clouds are three-dimensional and irregular distributed signals. For this reason, the points in the point clouds are mostly sampled into regularly distributed voxels in the literature. Voxelization as a pretreatment significantly accelerates the process of segmenting surfaces. The geometric cues such as plane directions (normals) in the voxels are mostly used to segment the local surfaces. However, the sampling process may include a non-planar point group (patch), which is mostly on the edges and corners, in a voxel. These voxels can cause misleading the segmentation process. In this paper, we separate the non-planar patches into planar sub-patches using k-means clustering. The largest one among the planar sub-patches replaces the normal and barycenter properties of the voxel with those of itself. We have tested this process in a successful point cloud segmentation method and measure the effects of the proposed method on two point cloud segmentation datasets (Mosque and Train Station). The method increases the accuracy success of the Mosque dataset from 83.84% to 87.86% and that of the Train Station dataset from 85.36% to 87.07%.


Author(s):  
T. Landes ◽  
S. Bidino ◽  
R. Guild

Today, elevations or sectional views of buildings are often produced from terrestrial laser scanning. However, due to the amount of data to process and because usually 2D maps are required by customers, the 3D point cloud is often degraded into 2D slices. In a sectional view, not only the portions of the objet which are intersected by the cutting plane but also edges and contours of other parts of the object which are visible behind the cutting plane are represented. To avoid the tedious manual drawing, the aim of this work is to propose a semi-automatic approach for creating sectional views by point cloud processing. The extraction of sectional views requires in a first step the segmentation of the point cloud into planar and non-planar entities. Since in cultural heritage buildings, arches, vaults, columns can be found, the position and the direction of the sectional view must be taken into account before contours extraction. Indeed, the edges of surfaces of revolution depend on the chosen view. The developed extraction approach is detailed based on point clouds acquired inside and outside churches. The resulting sectional view has been evaluated in a qualitative and quantitative way by comparing it with a reference sectional view made by hand. A mean deviation of 3 cm between both sections proves that the proposed approach is promising. Regarding the processing time, despite a few manual corrections, it has saved 40% of the time required for manual drawing.


Author(s):  
Jaromír Landa ◽  
David Procházka ◽  
Jiří Šťastný

High population as well as the economical tension emphasises the necessity of effective city management – from land use planning to urban green maintenance. The management effectiveness is based on precise knowledge of the city environment. Point clouds generated by mobile and terrestrial laser scanners provide precise data about objects in the scanner vicinity. From these data pieces the state of the roads, buildings, trees and other objects important for this decision-making process can be obtained. Generally, they can support the idea of “smart” or at least “smarter” cities.Unfortunately the point clouds do not provide this type of information automatically. It has to be extracted. This extraction is done by expert personnel or by object recognition software. As the point clouds can represent large areas (streets or even cities), usage of expert personnel to identify the required objects can be very time-consuming, therefore cost ineffective. Object recognition software allows us to detect and identify required objects semi-automatically or automatically.The first part of the article reviews and analyses the state of current art point cloud object recognition techniques. The following part presents common formats used for point cloud storage and frequently used software tools for point cloud processing. Further, a method for extraction of geospatial information about detected objects is proposed. Therefore, the method can be used not only to recognize the existence and shape of certain objects, but also to retrieve their geospatial properties. These objects can be later directly used in various GIS systems for further analyses.


Author(s):  
H. Houshiar ◽  
S. Winkler

With advance in technology access to data especially 3D point cloud data becomes more and more an everyday task. 3D point clouds are usually captured with very expensive tools such as 3D laser scanners or very time consuming methods such as photogrammetry. Most of the available softwares for 3D point cloud processing are designed for experts and specialists in this field and are usually very large software packages containing variety of methods and tools. This results in softwares that are usually very expensive to acquire and also very difficult to use. Difficulty of use is caused by complicated user interfaces that is required to accommodate a large list of features. The aim of these complex softwares is to provide a powerful tool for a specific group of specialist. However they are not necessary required by the majority of the up coming average users of point clouds. In addition to complexity and high costs of these softwares they generally rely on expensive and modern hardware and only compatible with one specific operating system. Many point cloud customers are not point cloud processing experts or willing to spend the high acquisition costs of these expensive softwares and hardwares. In this paper we introduce a solution for low cost point cloud processing. Our approach is designed to accommodate the needs of the average point cloud user. To reduce the cost and complexity of software our approach focuses on one functionality at a time in contrast with most available softwares and tools that aim to solve as many problems as possible at the same time. Our simple and user oriented design improve the user experience and empower us to optimize our methods for creation of an efficient software. In this paper we introduce Pointo family as a series of connected softwares to provide easy to use tools with simple design for different point cloud processing requirements. PointoVIEWER and PointoCAD are introduced as the first components of the Pointo family to provide a fast and efficient visualization with the ability to add annotation and documentation to the point clouds.


Author(s):  
J. Markiewicz ◽  
D. Zawieska ◽  
P. Podlasiak

This paper presents an analysis of source photogrammetric data in relation to the examination of verticality in a monumental tower. In the proposed data processing methodology, the geometric quality of the point clouds relating to the monumental tower of the castle in Iłżawas established by using terrestrial laser scanning (Z+F 5006h, Leica C10), terrestrial photographs and digital images sourced via unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) (Leica Aibot X6 Hexacopter). Tests were performed using the original software, developed by the authors, which allows for the automation of 3D point cloud processing. The software also facilitates the verification of the verticality of the tower and the assessment of the quality of utilized data.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (12) ◽  
pp. 2332
Author(s):  
Daniel Lamas ◽  
Mario Soilán ◽  
Javier Grandío ◽  
Belén Riveiro

The growing development of data digitalisation methods has increased their demand and applications in the transportation infrastructure field. Currently, mobile mapping systems (MMSs) are one of the most popular technologies for the acquisition of infrastructure data, with three-dimensional (3D) point clouds as their main product. In this work, a heuristic-based workflow for semantic segmentation of complex railway environments is presented, in which their most relevant elements are classified, namely, rails, masts, wiring, droppers, traffic lights, and signals. This method takes advantage of existing methodologies in the field for point cloud processing and segmentation, taking into account the geometry and spatial context of each classified element in the railway environment. This method is applied to a 90-kilometre-long railway lane and validated against a manual reference on random sections of the case study data. The results are presented and discussed at the object level, differentiating the type of the element. The indicators F1 scores obtained for each element are superior to 85%, being higher than 99% in rails, the most significant element of the infrastructure. These metrics showcase the quality of the algorithm, which proves that this method is efficient for the classification of long and variable railway sections, and for the assisted labelling of point cloud data for future applications based on training supervised learning models.


Sensors ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 18 (12) ◽  
pp. 4332 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patryk Ziolkowski ◽  
Jakub Szulwic ◽  
Mikolaj Miskiewicz

Remote sensing in structural diagnostics has recently been gaining attention. These techniques allow the creation of three-dimensional projections of the measured objects, and are relatively easy to use. One of the most popular branches of remote sensing is terrestrial laser scanning. Laser scanners are fast and efficient, gathering up to one million points per second. However, the weakness of terrestrial laser scanning is the troublesome processing of point clouds. Currently, many studies deal with the subject of point cloud processing in various areas, but it seems that there are not many clear procedures that we can use in practice, which indicates that point cloud processing is one of the biggest challenges of this issue. To tackle that challenge we propose a general framework for studying the structural deformations of bridges. We performed an advanced object shape analysis of a composite foot-bridge, which is subject to spatial deformations during the proof loading process. The added value of this work is the comprehensive procedure for bridge evaluation, and adaptation of the spheres translation method procedure for use in bridge engineering. The aforementioned method is accurate for the study of structural element deformation under monotonic load. The study also includes a comparative analysis between results from the spheres translation method, a total station, and a deflectometer. The results are characterized by a high degree of convergence and reveal the highly complex state of deformation more clearly than can be concluded from other measurement methods, proving that laser scanning is a good method for examining bridge structures with several competitive advantages over mainstream measurement methods.


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