scholarly journals GACM: A Graph Attention Capsule Model for the Registration of TLS Point Clouds in the Urban Scene

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (22) ◽  
pp. 4497
Author(s):  
Jianjun Zou ◽  
Zhenxin Zhang ◽  
Dong Chen ◽  
Qinghua Li ◽  
Lan Sun ◽  
...  

Point cloud registration is the foundation and key step for many vital applications, such as digital city, autonomous driving, passive positioning, and navigation. The difference of spatial objects and the structure complexity of object surfaces are the main challenges for the registration problem. In this paper, we propose a graph attention capsule model (named as GACM) for the efficient registration of terrestrial laser scanning (TLS) point cloud in the urban scene, which fuses graph attention convolution and a three-dimensional (3D) capsule network to extract local point cloud features and obtain 3D feature descriptors. These descriptors can take into account the differences of spatial structure and point density in objects and make the spatial features of ground objects more prominent. During the training progress, we used both matched points and non-matched points to train the model. In the test process of the registration, the points in the neighborhood of each keypoint were sent to the trained network, in order to obtain feature descriptors and calculate the rotation and translation matrix after constructing a K-dimensional (KD) tree and random sample consensus (RANSAC) algorithm. Experiments show that the proposed method achieves more efficient registration results and higher robustness than other frontier registration methods in the pairwise registration of point clouds.

Author(s):  
Y. Hori ◽  
T. Ogawa

The implementation of laser scanning in the field of archaeology provides us with an entirely new dimension in research and surveying. It allows us to digitally recreate individual objects, or entire cities, using millions of three-dimensional points grouped together in what is referred to as "point clouds". In addition, the visualization of the point cloud data, which can be used in the final report by archaeologists and architects, should usually be produced as a JPG or TIFF file. Not only the visualization of point cloud data, but also re-examination of older data and new survey of the construction of Roman building applying remote-sensing technology for precise and detailed measurements afford new information that may lead to revising drawings of ancient buildings which had been adduced as evidence without any consideration of a degree of accuracy, and finally can provide new research of ancient buildings. We used laser scanners at fields because of its speed, comprehensive coverage, accuracy and flexibility of data manipulation. Therefore, we “skipped” many of post-processing and focused on the images created from the meta-data simply aligned using a tool which extended automatic feature-matching algorithm and a popular renderer that can provide graphic results.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (6) ◽  
pp. 942 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Rosaria De Blasiis ◽  
Alessandro Di Benedetto ◽  
Margherita Fiani

The surface conditions of road pavements, including the occurrence and severity of distresses present on the surface, are an important indicator of pavement performance. Periodic monitoring and condition assessment is an essential requirement for the safety of vehicles moving on that road and the wellbeing of people. The traditional characterization of the different types of distress often involves complex activities, sometimes inefficient and risky, as they interfere with road traffic. The mobile laser systems (MLS) are now widely used to acquire detailed information about the road surface in terms of a three-dimensional point cloud. Despite its increasing use, there are still no standards for the acquisition and processing of the data collected. The aim of our work was to develop a procedure for processing the data acquired by MLS, in order to identify the localized degradations that mostly affect safety. We have studied the data flow and implemented several processing algorithms to identify and quantify a few types of distresses, namely potholes and swells/shoves, starting from very dense point clouds. We have implemented data processing in four steps: (i) editing of the point cloud to extract only the points belonging to the road surface, (ii) determination of the road roughness as deviation in height of every single point of the cloud with respect to the modeled road surface, (iii) segmentation of the distress (iv) computation of the main geometric parameters of the distress in order to classify it by severity levels. The results obtained by the proposed methodology are promising. The procedures implemented have made it possible to correctly segmented and identify the types of distress to be analyzed, in accordance with the on-site inspections. The tests carried out have shown that the choice of the values of some parameters to give as input to the software is not trivial: the choice of some of them is based on considerations related to the nature of the data, for others, it derives from the distress to be segmented. Due to the different possible configurations of the various distresses it is better to choose these parameters according to the boundary conditions and not to impose default values. The test involved a 100-m long urban road segment, the surface of which was measured with an MLS installed on a vehicle that traveled the road at 10 km/h.


Author(s):  
Z. Lari ◽  
K. Al-Durgham ◽  
A. Habib

Terrestrial laser scanning (TLS) systems have been established as a leading tool for the acquisition of high density three-dimensional point clouds from physical objects. The collected point clouds by these systems can be utilized for a wide spectrum of object extraction, modelling, and monitoring applications. Pole-like features are among the most important objects that can be extracted from TLS data especially those acquired in urban areas and industrial sites. However, these features cannot be completely extracted and modelled using a single TLS scan due to significant local point density variations and occlusions caused by the other objects. Therefore, multiple TLS scans from different perspectives should be integrated through a registration procedure to provide a complete coverage of the pole-like features in a scene. To date, different segmentation approaches have been proposed for the extraction of pole-like features from either single or multiple-registered TLS scans. These approaches do not consider the internal characteristics of a TLS point cloud (local point density variations and noise level in data) and usually suffer from computational inefficiency. To overcome these problems, two recently-developed PCA-based parameter-domain and spatial-domain approaches for the segmentation of pole-like features are introduced, in this paper. Moreover, the performance of the proposed segmentation approaches for the extraction of pole-like features from a single or multiple-registered TLS scans is investigated in this paper. The alignment of the utilized TLS scans is implemented using an Iterative Closest Projected Point (ICPP) registration procedure. Qualitative and quantitative evaluation of the extracted pole-like features from single and multiple-registered TLS scans, using both of the proposed segmentation approaches, is conducted to verify the extraction of more complete pole-like features using multipleregistered TLS scans.


Author(s):  
A. Nurunnabi ◽  
F. N. Teferle ◽  
J. Li ◽  
R. C. Lindenbergh ◽  
A. Hunegnaw

Abstract. Ground surface extraction is one of the classic tasks in airborne laser scanning (ALS) point cloud processing that is used for three-dimensional (3D) city modelling, infrastructure health monitoring, and disaster management. Many methods have been developed over the last three decades. Recently, Deep Learning (DL) has become the most dominant technique for 3D point cloud classification. DL methods used for classification can be categorized into end-to-end and non end-to-end approaches. One of the main challenges of using supervised DL approaches is getting a sufficient amount of training data. The main advantage of using a supervised non end-to-end approach is that it requires less training data. This paper introduces a novel local feature-based non end-to-end DL algorithm that generates a binary classifier for ground point filtering. It studies feature relevance, and investigates three models that are different combinations of features. This method is free from the limitations of point clouds’ irregular data structure and varying data density, which is the biggest challenge for using the elegant convolutional neural network. The new algorithm does not require transforming data into regular 3D voxel grids or any rasterization. The performance of the new method has been demonstrated through two ALS datasets covering urban environments. The method successfully labels ground and non-ground points in the presence of steep slopes and height discontinuity in the terrain. Experiments in this paper show that the algorithm achieves around 97% in both F1-score and model accuracy for ground point labelling.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (24) ◽  
pp. 5071
Author(s):  
Jing Zhang ◽  
Jiajun Wang ◽  
Da Xu ◽  
Yunsong Li

The use of LiDAR point clouds for accurate three-dimensional perception is crucial for realizing high-level autonomous driving systems. Upon considering the drawbacks of the current point cloud object-detection algorithms, this paper proposes HCNet, an algorithm that combines an attention mechanism with adaptive adjustment, starting from feature fusion and overcoming the sparse and uneven distribution of point clouds. Inspired by the basic idea of an attention mechanism, a feature-fusion structure HC module with height attention and channel attention, weighted in parallel, is proposed to perform feature-fusion on multiple pseudo images. The use of several weighting mechanisms enhances the ability of feature-information expression. Additionally, we designed an adaptively adjusted detection head that also overcomes the sparsity of the point cloud from the perspective of original information fusion. It reduces the interference caused by the uneven distribution of the point cloud from the perspective of adaptive adjustment. The results show that our HCNet has better accuracy than other one-stage-network or even two-stage-network RCNNs under some evaluation detection metrics. Additionally, it has a detection rate of 30FPS. Especially for hard samples, the algorithm in this paper has better detection performance than many existing algorithms.


Author(s):  
Gülhan Benli

Since the 2000s, terrestrial laser scanning, as one of the methods used to document historical edifices in protected areas, has taken on greater importance because it mitigates the difficulties associated with working on large areas and saves time while also making it possible to better understand all the particularities of the area. Through this technology, comprehensive point data (point clouds) about the surface of an object can be generated in a highly accurate three-dimensional manner. Furthermore, with the proper software this three-dimensional point cloud data can be transformed into three-dimensional rendering/mapping/modeling and quantitative orthophotographs. In this chapter, the study will present the results of terrestrial laser scanning and surveying which was used to obtain three-dimensional point clouds through three-dimensional survey measurements and scans of silhouettes of streets in Fatih in Historic Peninsula in Istanbul, which were then transposed into survey images and drawings. The study will also cite examples of the facade mapping using terrestrial laser scanning data in Istanbul Historic Peninsula Project.


Author(s):  
Beril Sirmacek ◽  
Yueqian Shen ◽  
Roderik Lindenbergh ◽  
Sisi Zlatanova ◽  
Abdoulaye Diakite

We present a comparison of point cloud generation and quality of data acquired by Zebedee (Zeb1) and Leica C10 devices which are used in the same building interior. Both sensor devices come with different practical and technical advantages. As it could be expected, these advantages come with some drawbacks. Therefore, depending on the requirements of the project, it is important to have a vision about what to expect from different sensors. In this paper, we provide a detailed analysis of the point clouds of the same room interior acquired from Zeb1 and Leica C10 sensors. First, it is visually assessed how different features appear in both the Zeb1 and Leica C10 point clouds. Next, a quantitative analysis is given by comparing local point density, local noise level and stability of local normals. Finally, a simple 3D room plan is extracted from both the Zeb1 and the Leica C10 point clouds and the lengths of constructed line segments connecting corners of the room are compared. The results show that Zeb1 is far superior in ease of data acquisition. No heavy handling, hardly no measurement planning and no point cloud registration is required from the operator. The resulting point cloud has a quality in the order of centimeters, which is fine for generating a 3D interior model of a building. Our results also clearly show that fine details of for example ornaments are invisible in the Zeb1 data. If point clouds with a quality in the order of millimeters are required, still a high-end laser scanner like the Leica C10 is required, in combination with a more sophisticated, time-consuming and elaborative data acquisition and processing approach.


Author(s):  
Philipp-Roman Hirt ◽  
Yusheng Xu ◽  
Ludwig Hoegner ◽  
Uwe Stilla

AbstractTrees play an important role in the complex system of urban environments. Their benefits to environment and health are manifold. Yet, especially near streets, the traffic can be impaired by a limited clearance. Even injuries could be caused by breaking tree parts. Hence, it is important to capture the trees in the frame of a tree cadastre and to ensure regular monitoring. Mobile laser scanning (MLS) can be used for data acquisition, followed by an automated analysis of the point clouds acquired over time. The presented approach uses occupancy grids with a grid size of 10 cm, which enable the comparison of several epochs in three-dimensional space. Prior to that, a segmentation of single tree objects is conducted. After cylinder-based trunk localisation, closely neighboured tree crowns are separated using weights derived from local point densities. Therefore, changes for every single tree can be derived with regard to its parameters and its point cloud. The testing area is set along an urban street in Munich, Germany, using the publicly available benchmark data sets TUM-MLS-2016/2018. In the frame of the evaluation, tree objects are geo-referenced and mapped in 2D. The tree parameters height and diameter at breast height are derived. The geometric evaluation of the change analysis facilitates not only the acquisition of stock changes, but also the detection of shape changes for the tree objects.


Author(s):  
Beril Sirmacek ◽  
Yueqian Shen ◽  
Roderik Lindenbergh ◽  
Sisi Zlatanova ◽  
Abdoulaye Diakite

We present a comparison of point cloud generation and quality of data acquired by Zebedee (Zeb1) and Leica C10 devices which are used in the same building interior. Both sensor devices come with different practical and technical advantages. As it could be expected, these advantages come with some drawbacks. Therefore, depending on the requirements of the project, it is important to have a vision about what to expect from different sensors. In this paper, we provide a detailed analysis of the point clouds of the same room interior acquired from Zeb1 and Leica C10 sensors. First, it is visually assessed how different features appear in both the Zeb1 and Leica C10 point clouds. Next, a quantitative analysis is given by comparing local point density, local noise level and stability of local normals. Finally, a simple 3D room plan is extracted from both the Zeb1 and the Leica C10 point clouds and the lengths of constructed line segments connecting corners of the room are compared. The results show that Zeb1 is far superior in ease of data acquisition. No heavy handling, hardly no measurement planning and no point cloud registration is required from the operator. The resulting point cloud has a quality in the order of centimeters, which is fine for generating a 3D interior model of a building. Our results also clearly show that fine details of for example ornaments are invisible in the Zeb1 data. If point clouds with a quality in the order of millimeters are required, still a high-end laser scanner like the Leica C10 is required, in combination with a more sophisticated, time-consuming and elaborative data acquisition and processing approach.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (6) ◽  
pp. 2713
Author(s):  
Hyungjoon Seo

The bearing capacity of CFA (Continuous Flight Auger) pile is not able to reach the design capacity if proper construction is not performed due to the soil collapse at the bottom of the pile. In this paper, three pile samples were prepared to simulate the bottom of the CFA pile: grouting sample; mixture of grouting and gravel; mixture of grouting and sand. The failure surfaces of each sample obtained by a uniaxial compression tests were represented as a three-dimensional point cloud by three-dimensional laser scanning. Therefore, high resolution of point clouds can be obtained to simulate the failure surfaces of three samples. The three-dimensional point cloud of each failure surface was analyzed by a plane to points histogram (P2PH) method and a roughness detection method by kernel proposed in this paper. These methods can analyze the global roughness as well as the local roughness of the three pile samples in three dimensions. The roughness features of the grouting sample, the mixed sample of grouting and sand, and the mixed sample of grouting and gravel can be distinguished by the sections where points of each sample are predominantly distributed in the histogram of the proposed method.


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