scholarly journals Hybrid Overlap Filter for LiDAR Point Clouds Using Free Software

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (7) ◽  
pp. 1051 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sandra Buján ◽  
Miguel Cordero ◽  
David Miranda
Keyword(s):  
Total Error ◽  
Digital Terrain Model ◽  
Point Clouds ◽  
Flow Diagram ◽  
Software Environment ◽  
Filtering Algorithms ◽  
Filtering Method ◽  
Hybrid Filtering ◽  
Seed Points ◽  
Reference Samples

Despite the large amounts of resources destined to developing filtering algorithms of LiDAR point clouds in order to obtain a Digital Terrain Model (DTM), the task remains a challenge. As a society advancing towards the democratization of information and collaborative processes, the researchers should not only focus on improving the efficacy of filters, but should also consider the users’ needs with a view toward improving the usability and accessibility of the filters in order to develop tools that will provide solutions to the challenges facing this field of study. In this work, we describe the Hybrid Overlap Filter (HyOF), a new filtering algorithm implemented in the free R software environment. The flow diagram of HyOF differs in the following ways from that of other filters developed to date: (1) the algorithm is formed by a combination of sequentially operating functions (i.e., the output of the first function provides the input of the second), which are capable of functioning independently and thus enabling integration of these functions with other filtering algorithms; (2) the variable penetrability is defined and used, along with slope and elevation, to identify ground points; (3) prior to selection of the seed points, the original point cloud is processed with the aim of removing points corresponding to buildings; and (4) a new method based on a moving window, with longitudinal overlap between windows and transverse overlap between passes, is used to select the seed points. Our hybrid filtering method is tested using 15 reference samples acquired by the International Society of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ISPRS) and is evaluated in comparison with 33 existing filtering algorithms. The results show that our hybrid filtering method produces an average total error of 3.34% and an average Kappa coefficient of 92.62%. The proposed algorithm is one of the most accurate filters that has been tested with the ISPRS reference samples.

Airborne laser scanning point clouds filtering method based on the construction of virtual ground seed points

2017 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 016032 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiaoqiang Liu ◽  
Yanming Chen ◽  
Liang Cheng ◽  
Mengru Yao ◽  
Shulin Deng ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Laser Scanning ◽  
Point Clouds ◽  
Airborne Laser Scanning ◽  
Ground Seed ◽  
Filtering Method ◽  
Airborne Laser ◽  
Seed Points

scholarly journals Performance Comparison of Filtering Algorithms for High-Density Airborne LiDAR Point Clouds over Complex LandScapes

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (14) ◽  
pp. 2663
Author(s):  
Chuanfa Chen ◽  
Jiaojiao Guo ◽  
Huiming Wu ◽  
Yanyan Li ◽  
Bo Shi
Keyword(s):  
Urban Areas ◽  
Total Error ◽  
Point Clouds ◽  
Performance Comparison ◽  
High Density ◽  
Airborne Lidar ◽  
Type I ◽  
Filtering Algorithms ◽  
Study Sites ◽  
Complex Landscapes

Airborne light detection and ranging (LiDAR) technology has become the mainstream data source in geosciences and environmental sciences. Point cloud filtering is a prerequisite for almost all LiDAR-based applications. However, it is challenging to select a suitable filtering algorithm for handling high-density point clouds over complex landscapes. Therefore, to determine an appropriate filter on a specific environment, this paper comparatively assessed the performance of five representative filtering algorithms on six study sites with different terrain characteristics, where three plots are located in urban areas and three in forest areas. The representative filtering methods include simple morphological filter (SMRF), multiresolution hierarchical filter (MHF), slope-based filter (SBF), progressive TIN densification (PTD) and segmentation-based filter (SegBF). Results demonstrate that SMRF performs the best in urban areas, and compared to MHF, SBF, PTD and SegBF, the total error of SMRF is reduced by 1.38%, 48.21%, 48.25% and 31.03%, respectively. MHF outperforms the others in forest areas, and compared to SMRF, SBF, PTD and SegBF, the total error of MHF is reduced by 1.98%, 35.87%, 45.11% and 9.42%, respectively. Moreover, both SMRF and MHF keep a good balance between type I and II errors, which makes the produced DEMs much similar to the references. Overall, SMRF and MHF are recommended for urban and forest areas, respectively, and MHF averagely performs slightly better than SMRF on all areas with respect to kappa coefficient.

scholarly journals A THRESHOLD-FREE FILTERING ALGORITHM FOR AIRBORNE LIDAR POINT CLOUDS BASED ON EXPECTATION-MAXIMIZATION

2018 ◽  
Vol XLII-3 ◽  
pp. 607-610 ◽  
Author(s):  
Z. Hui ◽  
P. Cheng ◽  
Y. Y. Ziggah ◽  
Y. Nie
Keyword(s):  
Expectation Maximization ◽  
Total Error ◽  
Gaussian Model ◽  
Point Clouds ◽  
Airborne Lidar ◽  
Maximum Likelihood Estimates ◽  
Filtering Algorithms ◽  
Filtering Algorithm ◽  
Intensity Information ◽  
Em Method

Filtering is a key step for most applications of airborne LiDAR point clouds. Although lots of filtering algorithms have been put forward in recent years, most of them suffer from parameters setting or thresholds adjusting, which will be time-consuming and reduce the degree of automation of the algorithm. To overcome this problem, this paper proposed a threshold-free filtering algorithm based on expectation-maximization. The proposed algorithm is developed based on an assumption that point clouds are seen as a mixture of Gaussian models. The separation of ground points and non-ground points from point clouds can be replaced as a separation of a mixed Gaussian model. Expectation-maximization (EM) is applied for realizing the separation. EM is used to calculate maximum likelihood estimates of the mixture parameters. Using the estimated parameters, the likelihoods of each point belonging to ground or object can be computed. After several iterations, point clouds can be labelled as the component with a larger likelihood. Furthermore, intensity information was also utilized to optimize the filtering results acquired using the EM method. The proposed algorithm was tested using two different datasets used in practice. Experimental results showed that the proposed method can filter non-ground points effectively. To quantitatively evaluate the proposed method, this paper adopted the dataset provided by the ISPRS for the test. The proposed algorithm can obtain a 4.48 % total error which is much lower than most of the eight classical filtering algorithms reported by the ISPRS.

scholarly journals High-Resolution Terrain Modeling Using Airborne LiDAR Data with Transfer Learning

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (17) ◽  
pp. 3448
Author(s):  
Huxiong Li ◽  
Weiya Ye ◽  
Jun Liu ◽  
Weikai Tan ◽  
Saied Pirasteh ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Transfer Learning ◽  
Total Error ◽  
Digital Terrain Model ◽  
Point Clouds ◽  
Airborne Lidar ◽  
Type I ◽  
Type Ii ◽  
Terrain Model ◽  
Digital Terrain ◽  
Airborne Lidar Data

This study presents a novel workflow for automated Digital Terrain Model (DTM) extraction from Airborne LiDAR point clouds based on a convolutional neural network (CNN), considering a transfer learning approach. The workflow consists of three parts: feature image generation, transfer learning using ResNet, and interpolation. First, each point is transformed into a featured image based on its elevation differences with neighboring points. Then, the feature images are classified into ground and non-ground using ImageNet pretrained ResNet models. The ground points are extracted by remapping each feature image to its corresponding points. Last, the extracted ground points are interpolated to generate a continuous elevation surface. We compared the proposed workflow with two traditional filters, namely the Progressive Morphological Filter (PMF) and the Progressive Triangulated Irregular Network Densification (PTD). Our results show that the proposed workflow establishes an advantageous DTM extraction accuracy with yields of only 0.52%, 4.84%, and 2.43% for Type I, Type II, and the total error, respectively. In comparison, Type I, Type II, and the total error for PMF are 7.82%, 11.60%, and 9.48% and for PTD 1.55%, 5.37%, and 3.22%, respectively. The root means square error (RMSE) for the 1 m resolution interpolated DTM is only 7.3 cm. Moreover, we conducted a qualitative analysis to investigate the reliability and limitations of the proposed workflow.

scholarly journals Comparative Analysis of Different Mobile LiDAR Mapping Systems for Ditch Line Characterization

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (13) ◽  
pp. 2485
Author(s):  
Yi-Chun Lin ◽  
Raja Manish ◽  
Darcy Bullock ◽  
Ayman Habib
Keyword(s):  
Flow Direction ◽  
Sediment Accumulation ◽  
Digital Terrain Model ◽  
Vertical Direction ◽  
Point Clouds ◽  
Lidar Data ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Premature Failure ◽  
3D Point Clouds ◽  
Mapping Systems

Maintenance of roadside ditches is important to avoid localized flooding and premature failure of pavements. Scheduling effective preventative maintenance requires a reasonably detailed mapping of the ditch profile to identify areas in need of excavation to remove long-term sediment accumulation. This study utilizes high-resolution, high-quality point clouds collected by mobile LiDAR mapping systems (MLMS) for mapping roadside ditches and performing hydrological analyses. The performance of alternative MLMS units, including an unmanned aerial vehicle, an unmanned ground vehicle, a portable backpack system along with its vehicle-mounted version, a medium-grade wheel-based system, and a high-grade wheel-based system, is evaluated. Point clouds from all the MLMS units are in agreement within the ±3 cm range for solid surfaces and ±7 cm range for vegetated areas along the vertical direction. The portable backpack system that could be carried by a surveyor or mounted on a vehicle is found to be the most cost-effective method for mapping roadside ditches, followed by the medium-grade wheel-based system. Furthermore, a framework for ditch line characterization is proposed and tested using datasets acquired by the medium-grade wheel-based and vehicle-mounted portable systems over a state highway. An existing ground-filtering approach—cloth simulation—is modified to handle variations in point density of mobile LiDAR data. Hydrological analyses, including flow direction and flow accumulation, are applied to extract the drainage network from the digital terrain model (DTM). Cross-sectional/longitudinal profiles of the ditch are automatically extracted from the LiDAR data and visualized in 3D point clouds and 2D images. The slope derived from the LiDAR data turned out to be very close to the highway cross slope design standards of 2% on driving lanes, 4% on shoulders, and a 6-by-1 slope for ditch lines.

scholarly journals Automated Generation of Digital Terrain Model using Point Clouds of Digital Surface Model in Forest Area

2011 ◽  
Vol 3 (5) ◽  
pp. 845-858 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kande R.M.U. Bandara ◽  
Lal Samarakoon ◽  
Rajendra P. Shrestha ◽  
Yoshikazu Kamiya
Keyword(s):  
Digital Terrain Model ◽  
Point Clouds ◽  
Forest Area ◽  
Surface Model ◽  
Digital Surface Model ◽  
Automated Generation ◽  
Terrain Model ◽  
Digital Terrain

scholarly journals AN AUTOMATIC FILTER ALGORITHM FOR DENSE IMAGE MATCHING POINT CLOUDS

2017 ◽  
Vol XLII-2/W7 ◽  
pp. 703-709 ◽  
Author(s):  
Y. Q. Dong ◽  
L. Zhang ◽  
X. M. Cui ◽  
H. B. Ai
Keyword(s):  
Image Matching ◽  
Iterative Process ◽  
Point Clouds ◽  
High Density ◽  
Aerial Images ◽  
Dense Image ◽  
Seed Points ◽  
Filter Algorithms

Although many filter algorithms have been presented over past decades, these algorithms are usually designed for the Lidar point clouds and can’t separate the ground points from the DIM (dense image matching, DIM) point clouds derived from the oblique aerial images owing to the high density and variation of the DIM point clouds completely. To solve this problem, a new automatic filter algorithm is developed on the basis of adaptive TIN models. At first, the differences between Lidar and DIM point clouds which influence the filtering results are analysed in this paper. To avoid the influences of the plants which can’t be penetrated by the DIM point clouds in the searching seed pointes process, the algorithm makes use of the facades of buildings to get ground points located on the roads as seed points and construct the initial TIN. Then a new densification strategy is applied to deal with the problem that the densification thresholds do not change as described in other methods in each iterative process. Finally, we use the DIM point clouds located in Potsdam produced by Photo-Scan to evaluate the method proposed in this paper. The experiment results show that the method proposed in this paper can not only separate the ground points from the DIM point clouds completely but also obtain the better filter results compared with TerraSolid. 1.

scholarly journals Photogrammetric surveying forests and woodlands with UAVs: techniques for automatic removal of vegetation and digital terrain model production for hydrological applications

2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-20
Author(s):  
Fotis Giagkas ◽  
Petros Patias ◽  
Charalampos Georgiadis
Keyword(s):  
Vegetation Type ◽  
Digital Terrain Model ◽  
Point Clouds ◽  
Aerial Images ◽  
Surface Model ◽  
Terrain Model ◽  
Vegetation Height ◽  
Digital Terrain ◽  
Dense Point ◽  
Height Model

The purpose of this study is the photogrammetric survey of a forested area using unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), and the estimation of the digital terrain model (DTM) of the area, based on the photogrammetrically produced digital surface model (DSM). Furthermore, through the classification of the height difference between a DSM and a DTM, a vegetation height model is estimated, and a vegetation type map is produced. Finally, the generated DTM was used in a hydrological analysis study to determine its suitability compared to the usage of the DSM. The selected study area was the forest of Seih-Sou (Thessaloniki). The DTM extraction methodology applies classification and filtering of point clouds, and aims to produce a surface model including only terrain points (DTM). The method yielded a DTM that functioned satisfactorily as a basis for the hydrological analysis. Also, by classifying the DSM–DTM difference, a vegetation height model was generated. For the photogrammetric survey, 495 aerial images were used, taken by a UAV from a height of ∼200 m. A total of 44 ground control points were measured with an accuracy of 5 cm. The accuracy of the aerial triangulation was approximately 13 cm. The produced dense point cloud, counted 146 593 725 points.

scholarly journals FACETS : A CLOUDCOMPARE PLUGIN TO EXTRACT GEOLOGICAL PLANES FROM UNSTRUCTURED 3D POINT CLOUDS

2016 ◽  
Vol XLI-B5 ◽  
pp. 799-804 ◽  
Author(s):  
T.J. B. Dewez ◽  
D. Girardeau-Montaut ◽  
C. Allanic ◽  
J. Rohmer
Keyword(s):  
Point Cloud ◽  
Point Clouds ◽  
Third Party ◽  
Fast Marching ◽  
Software Environment ◽  
Tension Parameter ◽  
3D Point Clouds ◽  
The Stability ◽  
Planar Facet ◽  
Gis Software

Geological planar facets (stratification, fault, joint…) are key features to unravel the tectonic history of rock outcrop or appreciate the stability of a hazardous rock cliff. Measuring their spatial attitude (dip and strike) is generally performed by hand with a compass/clinometer, which is time consuming, requires some degree of censoring (i.e. refusing to measure some features judged unimportant at the time), is not always possible for fractures higher up on the outcrop and is somewhat hazardous. 3D virtual geological outcrop hold the potential to alleviate these issues. Efficiently segmenting massive 3D point clouds into individual planar facets, inside a convenient software environment was lacking. FACETS is a dedicated plugin within CloudCompare v2.6.2 (<a href="http://cloudcompare.org/"target="_blank">http://cloudcompare.org/</a> ) implemented to perform planar facet extraction, calculate their dip and dip direction (i.e. azimuth of steepest decent) and report the extracted data in interactive stereograms. Two algorithms perform the segmentation: Kd-Tree and Fast Marching. Both divide the point cloud into sub-cells, then compute elementary planar objects and aggregate them progressively according to a planeity threshold into polygons. The boundaries of the polygons are adjusted around segmented points with a tension parameter, and the facet polygons can be exported as 3D polygon shapefiles towards third party GIS software or simply as ASCII comma separated files. One of the great features of FACETS is the capability to explore planar objects but also 3D points with normals with the stereogram tool. Poles can be readily displayed, queried and manually segmented interactively. The plugin blends seamlessly into CloudCompare to leverage all its other 3D point cloud manipulation features. A demonstration of the tool is presented to illustrate these different features. While designed for geological applications, FACETS could be more widely applied to any planar objects.

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