Some Remarks on Registration Techniques of Point Clouds Obtained from Terrestrial Laser Scanning

Abstract

Abstract Terrestrial laser scanning (TLS) is a measurement technique used for many geodetic applications (such as determination of displacement and deformation of building objects or monitoring of engineering structures) as well as for non-geodetic applications (for example in forestry, archeology or geotechnics). Despite the high level of automation, the measurement with a laser scanner and the processing of the results consist of many stages and depend on many factors. The most important factors are: the features of measurement object (size, material, availability), required accuracy, speed of scanning, required scan density, type of reference frame, registration method, planned visualization, and 3D modelling method. In this article, the authors focused on the type of registration technique of point clouds obtained from TLS. The most popular strategies of registration were discussed. The practical application of the selected technique was presented on the example of measurement of the railway gauge of the viaduct. Due to the characteristic object (narrow and long railway line) and considering the local reference frame of point clouds as well as the need of minimization of the measurement time, the hybrid registration method in the nested variant was selected.