Automated registration of unorganised point clouds from terrestrial laser scanners

Laser scanners provide a three-dimensional sampled representation of the surfaces of objects. The spatial resolution of the data is much higher than that of conventional surveying methods. The data collected from different locations of a laser scanner must be transformed into a common coordinate system. If good a priori alignment is provided and the point clouds share a large overlapping region, existing registration methods, such as the Iterative Closest Point (ICP) or Chen and Medioni’s method, work well. In practical applications of laser scanners, partially overlapping and unorganised point clouds are provided without good initial alignment. In these cases, the existing registration methods are not appropriate since it becomes very difficult to find the correspondence of the point clouds. A registration method, the Geometric Primitive ICP with the RANSAC (GPICPR), using geometric primitives, neighbourhood search, the positional uncertainty of laser scanners, and an outlier removal procedure is proposed in this thesis. The change of geometric curvature and approximate normal vector of the surface formed by a point and its neighbourhood are used for selecting the possible correspondences of point clouds. In addition, an explicit expression of the position uncertainty of measurement by laser scanners is presented in this dissertation and this position uncertainty is utilised to estimate the precision and accuracy of the estimated relative transformation parameters between point clouds. The GP-ICPR was tested with both simulated data and datasets from close range and terrestrial laser scanners in terms of its precision, accuracy, and convergence region. It was shown that the GP-ICPR improved the precision of the estimated relative transformation parameters as much as a factor of 5.In addition, the rotational convergence region of the GP-ICPR on the order of 10°, which is much larger than the ICP or its variants, provides a window of opportunity to utilise this automated registration method in practical applications such as terrestrial surveying and deformation monitoring

Differential absorption lidar for water vapour in the atmosphere

Looks at the development of Differential Absorption Lidar based on diode lasers for profiling the temporal and vertical distribution of water vapour in the atmosphere. Frequency modulation spectroscopy is applied t observe water vapour absorption lines in the infrared region and the wavelength locking of the master laser to the centre of the water vapour absorption line.Thesis (Ph.D.) -- University of Adelaide, Dept. of Physics and Mathematical Physics, 2002

Automated Matching of Segmented Point Clouds to As-built Plans

Terrestrial laser scanning (TLS) is seeing an increase use for surveying and engineering applications. As such, there is much on-going research into automating the process for segmentation and feature extraction. This paper presents a simple method for segmenting the interior of a building and comparing it to as-built plans. The method is based on analysing the local point attributes such as curvature, surface normal direction and underlying geometric structure. Random sampling consensus (RANSAC), region growing and voting techniques are applied to identify the predominant salient surface feature to extract wall and vertical segments. This information is used to generate a 2D plan of the interior space. A distance weighted method then automatically locates the corresponding vertices between the different datasets to transform them into a common coordinate system.A traditional survey was performed alongside the 3D point cloudcapture to compare and validate the generated 2D plans and the comparison to the existingdrawings. The accuracy of such generated plans from 3D point clouds will be explored

Modelling of an inexpensive 9M satellite dish from 3D point clouds captured by terrestrial laser scanners

This paper presents the use of Terrestrial laser scanners (TLS) to model the surface of satellite dish. In this case, the dish was an inexpensive 9m parabolic satellite dish with a mesh surface, and was to be utilised in radio astronomy. The aim of the modelling process was to determine the deviation of the surface away from its true parabolic shape, in order to estimate the surface efficiency with respect to its principal receiving frequency. The main mathematical problems were the optimal and unbiased estimation the orientation of the dish and the fitting of a parabola to the local orientation or coordinate system, which were done by both orthogonal and algebraic minimization using the least-squares method. Due to the mesh structure of the dish, a classification method was also applied to filter out erroneous points being influenced by the supporting structure behind the dish. Finally, a comparison is performed between the ideal parabolic shape, and the data collected from three different temporal intervals

Evaluation of the Convergence Region of an Automated Registration Method for 3D Laser Scanner Point Clouds

Using three dimensional point clouds from both simulated and real datasets from close and terrestrial laser scanners, the rotational and translational convergence regions of Geometric Primitive Iterative Closest Points (GP-ICP) are empirically evaluated. The results demonstrate the GP-ICP has a larger rotational convergence region than the existing methods, e.g., the Iterative Closest Point (ICP)

Characterization of single photon sources for radiometry applications at room temperature

A single photon source with high repeatability and low uncertainties is the key element for few-photon metrology based on photon numbers. While low photon number fluctuations and high repeatability are important figures for qualification as a standard light source, these characteristics are limited in single photon emitters by some malicious phenomena like blinking or internal relaxations to varying degrees in different materials. This study seeks to characterize photon number fluctuations and repeatability for radiometry applications at room temperature. For generality in this study, we collected photon statistics data with various single photon emitters of $g^{(2)}(0) < 1$ at low excitation power and room temperature in three material platforms: silicon vacancy in diamond, defects in GaN, and vacancy in hBN. We found common factors related with the relaxation times of the internal states that indirectly affect photon number stability. We observed a high stability of photon number with defects in GaN due to faster relaxations compared with vacancies in hBN, which on the other hand produced high rates ($> 10^6$) of photons per second. Finally, we demonstrate repeatable radiant flux measurements of a bright hBN single photon emitter for a wide radiant flux range from a few tens of femtowatts to one picowatt.Comment: Submitted to: Materials for Quantum Technology (IOP

Diffusion Decay Coefficient for Chloride Ions of Concrete Containing Mineral Admixtures

The diffusion coefficient for chloride ions and the diffusion decay coefficient for chloride ions are essential variables for a service life evaluation of concrete structures. They are influenced by water-binder ratio, exposure condition, curing temperature, cement type, and the type and use of mineral admixture. Mineral admixtures such as ground granulated blast furnace slag, fly ash, and silica fume have been increasingly used to improve resistance against chloride ions penetration in concrete structures built in an offshore environment. However, there is not enough measured data to identify the statistical properties of diffusion decay coefficient for chloride ions in concrete using mineral admixtures. This paper is aimed at evaluating the diffusion decay coefficient for chloride ions of concrete using ordinary Portland cement or blended cement. NT BUILD 492 method, an electrophoresis experiment, was used to measure the diffusion coefficient for chloride ions with ages. It was revealed from the test results that the diffusion decay coefficient for chloride ions was significantly influenced by W/B and the replacement ratio of mineral admixtures