scholarly journals SEGMENTATION OF LARGE UNSTRUCTURED POINT CLOUDS USING OCTREE-BASED REGION GROWING AND CONDITIONAL RANDOM FIELDS

Author(s):  
M. Bassier ◽  
M. Bonduel ◽  
B. Van Genechten ◽  
M. Vergauwen

Point cloud segmentation is a crucial step in scene understanding and interpretation. The goal is to decompose the initial data into sets of workable clusters with similar properties. Additionally, it is a key aspect in the automated procedure from point cloud data to BIM. Current approaches typically only segment a single type of primitive such as planes or cylinders. Also, current algorithms suffer from oversegmenting the data and are often sensor or scene dependent.<br><br> In this work, a method is presented to automatically segment large unstructured point clouds of buildings. More specifically, the segmentation is formulated as a graph optimisation problem. First, the data is oversegmented with a greedy octree-based region growing method. The growing is conditioned on the segmentation of planes as well as smooth surfaces. Next, the candidate clusters are represented by a Conditional Random Field after which the most likely configuration of candidate clusters is computed given a set of local and contextual features. The experiments prove that the used method is a fast and reliable framework for unstructured point cloud segmentation. Processing speeds up to 40,000 points per second are recorded for the region growing. Additionally, the recall and precision of the graph clustering is approximately 80%. Overall, nearly 22% of oversegmentation is reduced by clustering the data. These clusters will be classified and used as a basis for the reconstruction of BIM models.

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (13) ◽  
pp. 1586 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maarten Bassier ◽  
Maarten Vergauwen

The automated reconstruction of Building Information Modeling (BIM) objects from point cloud data is still subject of ongoing research. A vital step in the process is identifying the observations for each wall object. Given a set of segmented and classified point clouds, the labeled segments should be clustered according to their respective objects. The current processes to perform this task are sensitive to noise, occlusions, and the associativity between faces of neighboring objects. The proper retrieval of the observed geometry is especially important for wall geometry as it forms the basis for further BIM reconstruction. In this work, a method is presented to automatically group wall segments derived from point clouds according to the proper walls of a building. More specifically, a Conditional Random Field is employed that evaluates the context of each wall segment in order to determine which wall it belongs to. First, a set of classified planar primitives is obtained through algorithms developed in prior work. Next, both local and contextual features are extracted based on the nearest neighbors and a number of seeds that are heuristically determined. The final wall clusters are then computed by decoding the graph. The method is tested on our own data as well as the 2D-3D-Semantics (2D-3D-S) benchmark data of Stanford. Compared to a conventional region growing method, the proposed method reduces the rate of false positives, resulting in better wall clusters. Overall, the method computes a more balanced clustering of the observations. A key advantage of the proposed method is its capability to deal with wall geometry in complex configurations in multi-storey buildings opposed to the presented methods in current literature.


Author(s):  
M. Bassier ◽  
M. Vergauwen

<p><strong>Abstract.</strong> The automated reconstruction of Building Information Modeling (BIM) objects from point cloud data is still ongoing research. A key aspect is retrieving the proper observations for each object. After segmenting and classifying the initial point cloud, the labeled segments should be clustered according to their respective objects. However, this procedure is challenging due to noise, occlusions and the associativity between different objects. This is especially important for wall geometry as it forms the basis for further BIM reconstruction.</p><p> In this work, a method is presented to automatically group wall segments derived from point clouds according to the proper walls of a building. More specifically, a Conditional Random Field is employed that evaluates the context of each observation in order to determine which wall it belongs too. The emphasis is on the clustering of highly associative walls as this topic currently is a gap in the body of knowledge. First a set of classified planar primitives is obtained using algorithms developed in prior work. Next, both local and contextual features are extracted based on the nearest neighbors and a number of seeds that are heuristically determined. The final wall clusters are then computed by decoding the graph and thus the most likely configuration of the observations. The experiments prove that the used method is a promising framework for wall clustering from unstructured point cloud data. Compared to a conventional region growing method, the proposed method significantly reduces the rate of false positives, resulting in better wall clusters. A key advantage of the proposed method is its capability of dealing with complex wall geometry in entire buildings opposed to the presented methods in current literature.</p>


2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 95
Author(s):  
Zhonghua Su ◽  
Zhenji Gao ◽  
Guiyun Zhou ◽  
Shihua Li ◽  
Lihui Song ◽  
...  

Planes are essential features to describe the shapes of buildings. The segmentation of a plane is significant when reconstructing a building in three dimensions. However, there is a concern about the accuracy in segmenting plane from point cloud data. The objective of this paper was to develop an effective segmentation algorithm for building planes that combines the region growing algorithm with the distance algorithm based on boundary points. The method was tested on point cloud data from a cottage and pantry as scanned using a Faro Focus 3D laser range scanner and Matterport Camera, respectively. A coarse extraction of the building plane was obtained from the region growing algorithm. The coplanar points where two planes intersect were obtained from the distance algorithm. The building plane’s optimal segmentation was then obtained by combining the coarse extraction plane points and the corresponding coplanar points. The results show that the proposed method successfully segmented the plane points of the cottage and pantry. The optimal distance thresholds using the proposed method from the uncoarse extraction plane points to each plane boundary point of cottage and pantry were 0.025 m and 0.030 m, respectively. The highest correct rate and the highest error rate of the cottage’s (pantry’s) plane segmentations using the proposed method under the optimal distance threshold were 99.93% and 2.30% (98.55% and 2.44%), respectively. The F1 score value of the cottage’s and pantry’s plane segmentations using the proposed method under the optimal distance threshold reached 97.56% and 95.75%, respectively. This method can segment different objects on the same plane, while the random sample consensus (RANSAC) algorithm causes the plane to become over-segmented. The proposed method can also extract the coplanar points at the intersection of two planes, which cannot be separated using the region growing algorithm. Although the RANSAC-RG method combining the RANSAC algorithm and the region growing algorithm can optimize the segmentation results of the RANSAC (region growing) algorithm and has little difference in segmentation effect (especially for cottage data) with the proposed method, the method still loses coplanar points at some intersection of the two planes.


Author(s):  
Nan Luo ◽  
Yuanyuan Jiang ◽  
Quan Wang

Point cloud segmentation is a crucial fundamental step in 3D reconstruction, object recognition and scene understanding. This paper proposes a supervoxel-based point cloud segmentation algorithm in region growing principle to solve the issues of inaccurate boundaries and nonsmooth segments in the existing methods. To begin with, the input point cloud is voxelized and then pre-segmented into sparse supervoxels by flow constrained clustering, considering the spatial distance and local geometry between voxels. Afterwards, plane fitting is applied to the over-segmented supervoxels and seeds for region growing are selected with respect to the fitting residuals. Starting from pruned seed patches, adjacent supervoxels are merged in region growing style to form the final segments, according to the normalized similarity measure that integrates the smoothness and shape constraints of supervoxels. We determine the values of parameters via experimental tests, and the final results show that, by voxelizing and pre-segmenting the point clouds, the proposed algorithm is robust to noises and can obtain smooth segmentation regions with accurate boundaries in high efficiency.


2021 ◽  
Vol 2112 (1) ◽  
pp. 012017
Author(s):  
Chutian Gao ◽  
Ming Guo ◽  
Zexin Fu ◽  
Dengke Li ◽  
Xian Ren ◽  
...  

Abstract Obtaining architectural engineering drawings is a crucial aspect of upgrading and repairing structures. Traditional elevation measuring is ineffective and results in a poor rate of restoration. The current building elevation measurement solutions based on 3D scanning technology all obtain building 3D point cloud data from a single type of laser scanner. These two methods can’t get both indoor and outdoor scenes at the same time. This paper presents a scanning strategy that combines SLAM with Ground-based LiDAR to solve this problem. The point cloud data for the building’s indoor and outdoor scenes are obtained independently, and the Ground-based LiDAR point cloud data is registered locally using the iterative closest point(ICP) algorithm. The SLAM point clouds and the Ground-based LiDAR point clouds are then registered as a whole to develop an overall model of the building using point constrained error equations. For various reasons, the building can be trimmed into a planar point cloud model depending on the application. Finally, engineering drawings for the construction of the building can be drawn. The method’s viability was demonstrated by using it in a 3D scanning project of a scenic site in Beijing. This technology improves model information interpretability, scanning efficiency, and provides powerful data assistance for building rehabilitation and repair. It is extremely important in the disciplines of urban planning, rehabilitation, and historic preservation. After performing a more optimal preprocessing, more than 90% classification accuracy was achieved across 18 low-power consumer devices for scenarios in which the in-band features-to-noise ratio (FNR) was very poor.


Author(s):  
C. L. Kang ◽  
F. Wang ◽  
M. M. Zong ◽  
Y. Cheng ◽  
T. N. Lu

Abstract. The effective segmentation of point clouds is a prerequisite for surface reconstruction, blind spot repair, and so on. Among them, regional growth is widely used due to its simple and easy to implement algorithm. However, the traditional regional growth segmentation algorithm often causes problems such as over-segmentation or voiding of the segmentation result due to the instability of the local features of the point cloud or the unreasonable selection of the initial seed nodes. In view of the above shortcomings, this paper proposes an improved region growing point cloud algorithm. Firstly, by calculating the Gaussian curvature and the average curvature of the point cloud data and sorting them, and setting the minimum curvature point as the seed node, the total number of clusters is reduced, and the quality of the classification result is improved. Secondly, the growth of the point cloud region growth criterion is determined by combining the normal angles. Finally, according to the shape characteristics of the point cloud and the preliminary segmentation results, each threshold is adjusted and determined, and the segmentation result is optimized.The experimental results show that compared with the traditional regional growth segmentation algorithm, this method can not only reduce the total number of segmentation regions, but also segment the point cloud data quickly and effectively, and solve the segmentation result caused by the traditional region growth point cloud segmentation method. Problems such as stability improve the accuracy and stability of point cloud segmentation.


Author(s):  
Jiayong Yu ◽  
Longchen Ma ◽  
Maoyi Tian, ◽  
Xiushan Lu

The unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)-mounted mobile LiDAR system (ULS) is widely used for geomatics owing to its efficient data acquisition and convenient operation. However, due to limited carrying capacity of a UAV, sensors integrated in the ULS should be small and lightweight, which results in decrease in the density of the collected scanning points. This affects registration between image data and point cloud data. To address this issue, the authors propose a method for registering and fusing ULS sequence images and laser point clouds, wherein they convert the problem of registering point cloud data and image data into a problem of matching feature points between the two images. First, a point cloud is selected to produce an intensity image. Subsequently, the corresponding feature points of the intensity image and the optical image are matched, and exterior orientation parameters are solved using a collinear equation based on image position and orientation. Finally, the sequence images are fused with the laser point cloud, based on the Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) time index of the optical image, to generate a true color point cloud. The experimental results show the higher registration accuracy and fusion speed of the proposed method, thereby demonstrating its accuracy and effectiveness.


Sensors ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 884
Author(s):  
Chia-Ming Tsai ◽  
Yi-Horng Lai ◽  
Yung-Da Sun ◽  
Yu-Jen Chung ◽  
Jau-Woei Perng

Numerous sensors can obtain images or point cloud data on land, however, the rapid attenuation of electromagnetic signals and the lack of light in water have been observed to restrict sensing functions. This study expands the utilization of two- and three-dimensional detection technologies in underwater applications to detect abandoned tires. A three-dimensional acoustic sensor, the BV5000, is used in this study to collect underwater point cloud data. Some pre-processing steps are proposed to remove noise and the seabed from raw data. Point clouds are then processed to obtain two data types: a 2D image and a 3D point cloud. Deep learning methods with different dimensions are used to train the models. In the two-dimensional method, the point cloud is transferred into a bird’s eye view image. The Faster R-CNN and YOLOv3 network architectures are used to detect tires. Meanwhile, in the three-dimensional method, the point cloud associated with a tire is cut out from the raw data and is used as training data. The PointNet and PointConv network architectures are then used for tire classification. The results show that both approaches provide good accuracy.


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.


2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (9) ◽  
pp. 617
Author(s):  
Su Yang ◽  
Miaole Hou ◽  
Ahmed Shaker ◽  
Songnian Li

The digital documentation of cultural relics plays an important role in archiving, protection, and management. In the field of cultural heritage, three-dimensional (3D) point cloud data is effective at expressing complex geometric structures and geometric details on the surface of cultural relics, but lacks semantic information. To elaborate the geometric information of cultural relics and add meaningful semantic information, we propose a modeling and processing method of smart point clouds of cultural relics with complex geometries. An information modeling framework for complex geometric cultural relics was designed based on the concept of smart point clouds, in which 3D point cloud data are organized through the time dimension and different spatial scales indicating different geometric details. The proposed model allows smart point clouds or a subset to be linked with semantic information or related documents. As such, this novel information modeling framework can be used to describe rich semantic information and high-level details of geometry. The proposed information model not only expresses the complex geometric structure of the cultural relics and the geometric details on the surface, but also has rich semantic information, and can even be associated with documents. A case study of the Dazu Thousand-Hand Bodhisattva Statue, which is characterized by a variety of complex geometries, reveals that our proposed framework is capable of modeling and processing the statue with excellent applicability and expansibility. This work provides insights into the sustainable development of cultural heritage protection globally.


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