Integration of mobile laser scanning and aerial imagery data for generating digital surface models

Abstract

Aerial photography and mobile laser scanning are some of the most efficient methods of surveying, which allow creating digital surface models of the area with high accuracy and detail. Both of these methods allow gathering information about the area in the form of point clouds. However, due to the fact that the aerial survey data are obtained from the air, and the MLS ones from the ground, point clouds obtained by different methods display the same territory with different detail. For example, the roofs of buildings are well recognized from aerial data, and their walls – from MLS ones. The necessity of combined use of heterogeneous data through their integration is appeared. In this case, it is necessary to solve a number of tasks, such as registration of point clouds, assessing visibility zones depending on the survey territory, saving in the final combined point cloud only those points in the over-lapping areas that most accurately and fully describe the shapes of the terrain objects, filtering false measurements. The main tasks that arise during data integration are discussed. The technique of integrating mobile laser scanning and aerial photography data for generating a single digital surface model is proposed. This technique consists in recognizing the separated objects of the territory or their parts. The study results of the developed technique based on the data of Novosibirsk are presented.