Iterative Differential Entropy Minimization (IDEM) Method for Fine Rigid Pairwise 3D Point Cloud Registration: A Focus on the Metric.

The registration of point clouds in a three-dimensional space is an important task in many areas of computer vision, including robotics and autonomous driving. The purpose of registration is to find a rigid geometric transformation to align two point clouds. The registration problem can be affected by noise and partiality (two point clouds only have a partial overlap). The Iterative Closed Point (ICP) algorithm is a common method for solving the registration problem. Recently, artificial neural networks have begun to be used in the registration of point clouds. The drawback of ICP and other registration algorithms is the possible convergence to a local minimum. Thus, an important characteristic of a registration algorithm is the ability to avoid local minima. In this paper, we propose an ICP-type registration algorithm (λ-ICP) that uses a multiparameter functional (λ-functional). The proposed λ-ICP algorithm generalizes the NICP algorithm (normal ICP). The application of the λ-functional requires a consistent choice of the eigenvectors of the covariance matrix of two point clouds. The paper also proposes an algorithm for choosing the directions of eigenvectors. The performance of the proposed λ-ICP algorithm is compared with that of a standard point-to-point ICP and neural network Deep Closest Points (DCP).

Framework for automated registration of UAV and UGV point clouds using local features in images

Terrestrial laser scanners have achieved great popularity in the last decade. Their easy on-site application and the possibility of flexible and high quality post processing added to their success in several fields such as architectural, archaeological, and heritage documentation. We present a method for handling the automatic registration of point clouds which are characterized by significant noise level, generally imperfect geometry and occlusions. Hereby we combine and extend already existing and established methods to facilitate the registration of point clouds without prior pre-processing. Our approach consists—similar to other methods—of three steps which are scan analysis, pair-wise registration, and global registration. To handle the abovementioned datasets we propose to use imperfect and subdivided features, and to implement Genetic Algorithms (GAs). At the same time our approach can be seen as extension to already known Genetic Algorithms used for the registration of point clouds. By implementing an adapted version of a Genetic Algorithm in the classical registration process between rough alignment and fine registration, we are able to maintain robustness and computational performance also when registering point clouds of bigger objects characterized by a notably increased number of points, a significant noise level, and occlusions. We show and discuss the successful application of the algorithm on a scene which does not consist of classical geometric primitives such as planes.

In response to the issues of slow convergence and the tendency to fall into local optima in traditional iterative closest point (ICP) point cloud registration algorithms, this study presents a fast registration algorithm for laser point clouds based on 3D scale-invariant feature transform (3D-SIFT) feature extraction. First, feature points are preliminarily extracted using a normal vector threshold; then, more high-quality feature points are extracted using the 3D-SIFT algorithm, effectively reducing the number of point cloud registrations. Based on the extracted feature points, a coarse registration of the point cloud is performed using the fast point feature histogram (FPFH) descriptor combined with the sample consensus initial alignment (SAC-IA) algorithm, followed by fine registration using the point-to-plane ICP algorithm with a symmetric target function. The experimental results show that this algorithm significantly improved the registration efficiency. Compared with the traditional SAC-IA+ICP algorithm, the registration accuracy of this algorithm increased by 29.55% in experiments on a public dataset, and the registration time was reduced by 81.01%. In experiments on actual collected data, the registration accuracy increased by 41.72%, and the registration time was reduced by 67.65%. The algorithm presented in this paper maintains a high registration accuracy while greatly reducing the registration speed.

The iterative closest point (ICP) tends to fall into local optimality due to inaccurate initial poses during the registration of the multi-view 3D cloud. Therefore, this paper proposes a parallel ICP algorithm with conditional constraint corresponding points. To achieve a fine registration of the point cloud, the corresponding point set is first filtered by adding the normal and color information. Then the OpenMP is introduced to accelerate the program in parallel for ICP. To verify the effectiveness of our algorithm, in the V-Rep simulation environment, the multi-view point cloud data of the scene is obtained by the RGB-D cameras from different angles point cloud. The results show that our algorithm can fuse the multi-view point cloud, improve the accuracy and real-time performance of ICP. Furthermore, in a large-scale calculation, the average single iteration time is less than 0.1s, and the RMSE (root mean square error) is about 0.1, which meets the need of target recognition and sorting in a three-dimensional industrial scene.

Automatic pairwise registration for unordered terrestrial laser scanner (TLS) point clouds is the pre-requisite for many applications, including 3D model reconstruction, cultural heritage management and landslide monitoring. However, most of the existing registration methods are still suffering from several limitations: (1) difficult to find the correct corresponding point pairs from the source and target point cloud, (2) low accuracy of pairwise registration and (3) the iterative process of registration is time-consuming. To overcome these challenges, based on the covariance matrix, this paper presents a robust and descriptive feature descriptor vector (FDV) to locally describe a point, by which the corresponding point pairs are obtained and the registration matrix is calculated. First, the FDVs of the original point cloud’s keypoints are calculated. Second, the corresponding point pairs are found via their FDVs. Third, the coarse transformation matrix is calculated by the corresponding point pairs using the singular value decomposition (SVD) algorithm, and which is further refined by the iterative closest point (ICP) algorithm to get a better result. Finally, the experiments are conducted on the Autonomous Systems Lab (ASL) and ISPRS datasets; our results show that the proposed algorithm can obtain good registration performance, and outperforms the compared methods.

The challenges of point cloud registration in intelligent vehicle driving lie in the large scale, complex distribution, high noise, and strong sparsity of lidar point cloud data. This paper proposes an efficient registration algorithm for large-scale outdoor road scenes by selecting the continuous distribution of key area laser point clouds as the registration point cloud. The algorithm extracts feature descriptions of the key point cloud and introduces local geometric features of the point cloud to complete rough and fine registration under constraints of key point clouds and point cloud features. The algorithm is verified through extensive experiments under multiple scenarios, with an average registration time of 0.5831 s and an average accuracy of 0.06996 m, showing significant improvement compared to other algorithms. The algorithm is also validated through real-vehicle experiments, demonstrating strong versatility, reliability, and efficiency. This research has the potential to improve environment perception capabilities of autonomous vehicles by solving the point cloud registration problem in large outdoor scenes.

In this paper, we propose an efficient way to produce an initial transposed matrix for two point clouds, which can effectively avoid the drawback of local optimism caused by using standard Iterative Closest Points (ICP)[ algorithm when matching two point clouds. In our approach, the correspondences used to calculate the transposed matrix are confirmed before the point cloud forms. We use the depth images which have been carefully target-segmented to find the boundaries of the shapes that reflect different views of the same target object. Then each contour is affected by curvature scale space (CSS)[ method to find a sequence of characteristic points. After that, our method is applied on these characteristic points to find the most matching pairs of points. Finally, we convert the matched characteristic points to 3D points, and the correspondences are there being confirmed. We can use them to compute an initial transposed matrix to tell the computer which part of the first point cloud should be matched to the second. In this way, we put the two point clouds in a correct initial location, so that the local optimism of ICP and its variations can be excluded.

Abstract. The registration of multiple surface point clouds into a common reference frame is a well addressed topic, and the Iterative Closest Point (ICP) is – perhaps – the most used method when registering laser scans due to their irregular nature. In this paper, we examine the proposed Iterative Closest Projected Point (ICPP) algorithm for the simultaneous registration of multiple point clouds. First, a point to triangular patch (i.e. closest three points) match is established by checking if the point falls within the triangular dipyramid, which has the three triangular patch points as a base and a user-chosen normal distance as the height to establish the two peaks. Then, the point is projected onto the patch surface, and its projection is then used as a match for the original point. It is also shown through empirical experimentation that the Delaunay triangles are not a requirement for establishing matches. In fact, Delaunay triangles in some scenarios may force blunders into the final solution, while using the closest three points leads to avoiding some undesired erroneous points. In addition, we review the algorithm by which the ICPP is inspired, namely, the Iterative Closest Patch (ICPatch); where conjugate point-patch pairs are extracted in the overlapping surface areas, and the transformation parameters between all neighbouring surfaces are estimated in a pairwise manner. Then, using the conjugate point-patch pairs, and applying the transformation parameters from the pairwise registration as initial approximations, the final surface transformation parameters are solved for simultaneously. Finally, we evaluate the assumptions made and examine the performance of the new algorithm against the ICPatch.

Laser three-dimensional (3D) image is a novel non-cooperative target 3D image acquisition technology, and the improvements in detection capability and imaging accuracy of the system are critically dependent on efficient echo-signal processing technique and 3D reconstruction method. The registration process is an essential step in array 3D imaging laser point cloud data processing. Registration of point clouds is an effective method that solves the problem caused by the target self-occlusion in the laser 3D imaging system. The accurate registration result will help provide better support for subsequent applications, such as object reconstruction and target recognition. In this study, a set of thresholds in the iterative closest point (ICP) algorithm is analysed on the basis of the characteristics of the laser array 3D imaging system and is combined with the range error and visual lateral resolution of the system, which are both important parameters in the imaging system. To improve the accuracy and speed of registration, the stop threshold of the iterative algorithm and the corresponding point-distance threshold in the algorithm are established in a novel way based on the range error and visual lateral resolution of the system. This forms the foundation, based on which an adaptive threshold ICP algorithm is proposed. The principal idea of the algorithm is to improve the threshold set that has a considerable effect on the accuracy and speed of registration. At first, the characteristics of the imaging point clouds of the laser array 3D imaging system are analysed in the algorithm. Based on this analysis, the distance between the two point clouds and corresponding points with ideal registrations are estimated theoretically, according to the range error and visual lateral resolution of the system. The simulation results show that the theoretically estimated results and actual results have the same variation tendency, thus providing a theoretical basis for subsequent improvements. Next, the estimated results are added according to the iterative closest point algorithm. This implies that the registration thresholds are capable of changing and adapting under different iterations and imaging systems, thus improving the speed and accuracy of registrations. This phenomenon is not seen in other algorithms. Experiments involving laser array imaging of a point cloud and laser scanning of depth imaging data show that the algorithm is practical and effective for both imaging types of point clouds and can improve the speed and accuracy of registration notably. The effectiveness and feasibility of the proposed algorithm are thus verified. In addition, for its full consideration of the imaging system, the basic idea of the proposed algorithm can be used for designing future applications as required.

Large-scale scene point cloud registration with limited overlap is a challenging task due to computational load and constrained data acquisition. To tackle these issues, we propose a point cloud registration method, MT-PCR, based on Modality Transformation. MT-PCR leverages a Bird's Eye View (BEV) capturing the maximal overlap information to improve the accuracy and utilizes images to provide complementary spatial features. Specifically, MT-PCR converts 3D point clouds to BEV images and estimates correspondence by 2D image keypoints extraction and matching. Subsequently, the 2D correspondence estimates are then transformed back to 3D point clouds using inverse mapping. We have applied MT-PCR to Terrestrial Laser Scanning (TLS) and Aerial Laser Scanning (ALS) point cloud registration on the GrAco dataset, involving 8 low-overlap, square-kilometer scale registration scenarios. Experiments and comparisons with commonly used methods demonstrate that MT-PCR can achieve superior accuracy and robustness in large-scale scenes with limited overlap.

The present work proposes a new method Reg3DFacePtCd for registration of point clouds. The key contribution of the present method is that an unknown face in 3D point cloud form is given to the system and is registered to the already existing known 3D face point clouds using a fast 3D face registration method. The novelty of the present technique is that at first the alignment and registration parameters are found out by initially registering eight key points of the unknown source model to that of the known model. Next, the rest of the point clouds of the unknown model are registered to that of the known model using the same parameters found as above. The main method used for alignment is iterative closest point (ICP) using point-based technique followed by registration in the least squares sense. Mainly there are two significant contributions. Firstly, we have developed a new mathematical model facial landmark point based model across poses to obtain the target or the known model to which all the unknown models will be registered. Secondly, a novel way to accelerate point cloud matching by reducing the number of points has been proposed. Using a small number of points necessarily would speed up the registration process but may inculcate errors. So, to determine the registration quality of the fundamental eight key points on which the entire registration process is based, a new robust metric namely ICV (ICP certainty vector) consisting of several key components have been used. Finally, we have addressed several important face registration issues like pre-processing, convergence and quality of registration of the entire facial point cloud based on the eight key points. Extensive experimentation on Frav3D, GavabDB, and the Bosphorus databases on a high-performance computing environment show the novelty and robustness of the method.

Point set augmentation through fitting for enhanced ICP registration of point clouds in multisensor coordinate metrology

In this study, a new automatic point cloud registration algorithm based on point cloud registration is proposed to broaden registration ways. The proposed method extracts features of point cloud region for performing the coarse registration. Based on the coarse registration results, the Iterative Closest Point (ICP) algorithm is used for performing the fine registration to restore the measured model. The proposed registration approach is able to do automatic registration without any assumptions about initial positions, and avoid the problems of traditional ICP algorithm in the bad initial estimation. The proposed method along with ICP algorithm provides efficient 3D modeling for computer-aided engineering, computer-aided design and application with Kinect.

In surgical navigation-assisted pedicle screw fixation, cross-source pre- and intra-operative point clouds registration faces challenges like significant initial pose differences and low overlapping ratio. Classical algorithms based on feature descriptor have high computational complexity and are less robust to noise, leading to a decrease in accuracy and navigation performance. To address these problems, this paper proposes a coarse-to-fine registration framework. In the coarse registration stage, a Point Matching algorithm based on Curvature Feature Learning (CFL-PM) is proposed. Through CFL-PM and Farthest Point Sampling (FPS), the coarse registration of overlapping regions between the two point clouds is achieved. In the fine registration stage, the Iterative Closest Point (ICP) is used for further optimization. The proposed method effectively addresses the challenges of noise, initial pose and low overlapping ratio. In noise-free point cloud registration experiments, the average rotation and translation errors reached 0.34° and 0.27 mm. Under noisy conditions, the average rotation error of the coarse registration is 7.28°, and the average translation error is 9.08 mm. Experiments on pre- and intra-operative point cloud datasets demonstrate the proposed algorithm outperforms the compared algorithms in registration accuracy, speed, and robustness. Therefore, the proposed method can achieve the precise alignment of the surgical navigation-assisted pedicle screw fixation.