Systematic Effects in Laser Scanning and Visualization by Confidence Regions

Abstract

AbstractA new method for dealing with systematic effects in laser scanning and visualizing them by confidence regions is derived. The standard deviations of the systematic effects are obtained by repeatedly measuring three-dimensional coordinates by the laser scanner. In addition, autocovariance and cross-covariance functions are computed by the repeated measurements and give the correlations of the systematic effects. The normal distribution for the measurements and the multivariate uniform distribution for the systematic effects are applied to generate random variates for the measurements and random variates for the measurements plus systematic effects. Monte Carlo estimates of the expectations and the covariance matrix of the measurements with systematic effects are computed. The densities for the confidence ellipsoid for the measurements and the confidence region for the measurements with systematic effects are obtained by relative frequencies. They only depend on the size of the rectangular volume elements for which the densities are determined. The problem of sorting the densities is solved by sorting distances together with the densities. This allows a visualization of the confidence ellipsoid for the measurements and the confidence region for the measurements with systematic effects.