Point cloud registration algorithm based on improved ICP

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.

Abstract. The registration of ground laser point cloud and close-range image is the key content of high-precision 3D reconstruction of cultural relic object. In view of the requirement of high texture resolution in the field of cultural relic at present, The registration of point cloud and image data in object reconstruction will result in the problem of point cloud to multiple images. In the current commercial software, the two pairs of registration of the two kinds of data are realized by manually dividing point cloud data, manual matching point cloud and image data, manually selecting a two – dimensional point of the same name of the image and the point cloud, and the process not only greatly reduces the working efficiency, but also affects the precision of the registration of the two, and causes the problem of the color point cloud texture joint. In order to solve the above problems, this paper takes the whole object image as the intermediate data, and uses the matching technology to realize the automatic one-to-one correspondence between the point cloud and multiple images. The matching of point cloud center projection reflection intensity image and optical image is applied to realize the automatic matching of the same name feature points, and the Rodrigo matrix spatial similarity transformation model and weight selection iteration are used to realize the automatic registration of the two kinds of data with high accuracy. This method is expected to serve for the high precision and high efficiency automatic 3D reconstruction of cultural relic objects, which has certain scientific research value and practical significance.

This study explores the use of point clouds for both representation and genetic morphogenesis of complex geometry. The accurate representation of existing objects of complex curved geometry, which are subsequently geometrically modified by evolutionary morphogenetic processes, is analysed. To this end, as a method of representation and generation of complex geometries, a point-based genetic algorithm and the use of large unstructured point clouds are proposed. A study of convergence and diversity of the implemented algorithm is detailed, as well as a comparison with the Coyote optimisation algorithm in terms of representation error demonstrating its efficiency. Some commonly used three-dimensional formats in architecture, such as NURBS and polygon meshes, are analysed, and compared against point clouds. This study also includes an evaluation regarding whether the use of point clouds is a more suitable format for realistic representation, rationalisation and genetic morphogenesis.

To solve the problem of low registration efficiency of the classical ICP algorithm in point cloud data registration, a point cloud registration method to improve the ICP algorithm is proposed.By considering the similarity of the point cloud data, our algorithm find a more reasonable point pair to compare with the classical ICP.In addition, we used a new distance error measure in the ICP framework, which considers the similarity instead of the Euclidean distance.By observing the experimental results, we find that the proposed scheme speeded up the registration convergence and eliminated the mispairing of data points.The running time of the algorithm is significantly improved to meet the requirements of the registration, and the Registration efficiency is improved to 8 times the original.

The intelligent road is an important component of the intelligent vehicle infrastructure cooperative system, the latest development of intelligent transportation systems. As an advanced sensor, Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) has gradually been used to collect high-resolution micro-traffic data on the roadside of intelligent roads. Furthermore, a fusion of multiple LiDARs has become a current hot spot to extend the data collection range and improve detection accuracy. This paper focuses on point cloud registration in a complex traffic environment and proposes a three-dimensional (3D) registration method based on traffic signs and prior knowledge of traffic scenes. Traffic signs with their reflective films are used as reference targets to register 3D point cloud data from roadside LiDARs. The proposed method consists of a vertical registration and a horizontal registration. For the vertical registration, we propose a panel rotation algorithm to rotate the initial point cloud to register it vertically, converting the 3D point cloud registration into a two-dimensional (2D) rigid body transformation. For the vertical registration, our system registers traffic signs from different LiDARs. Our method has been verified in some actual scenarios. Compared with previous methods, the proposed method is automatic and does not need to search reference targets manually. Furthermore, it is suitable for actual engineering use and can be applied to sparse point cloud data from LiDAR with few beams, realizing point cloud registration of large disparity.

With the rapid development of binocular reconstruction, fringe projection profilometry, and time of flight, 3D imaging technology has been widely applied in the field of 3D measurement. However, due to limited measurement range and self-occlusion, point cloud registration methods are often used to obtain larger or more complete 3D contours. Although many scholars have proposed various point cloud registration methods, the accuracy and efficiency of point cloud registration still need to be further improved, especially for point clouds with different density or non-rigid transformation. Image registration technology based on image correlation has been developed for many years and has achieved great success in fields such as computer vision, photomechanics, and photogrammetry. Therefore, a simple and direct idea in this paper is to transform the point cloud registration problem into volume image correlation problem. By this, an efficient image registration method based on fast Fourier transform and an inverse compositional Gaussian Newton optimization method that only needs to calculate the Hessian matrix once can be introduced into the point cloud registration field, which can greatly improve the speed and accuracy of point cloud registration. Comparative experiments have shown that our method has doubled the accuracy and efficiency compared to the iterative closest point (ICP) method, and its practicality has also been verified in impeller reconstruction experiments.

Point cloud registration is an important part of 3D point cloud map construction based on multi-line lidar. At present, traditional iterative nearest point algorithm (ICP) is mainly used for point cloud registration. For the traditional iterative nearest point algorithm, point cloud registration is time-consuming and error-prone, which leads to the low accuracy of point cloud registration. Based on the principle of traditional iterative nearest point algorithm, this paper proposes an improved ICP algorithm combining PL-ICP algorithm and PP-ICP algorithm. The map construction is realized by this method, and on the basis of the map construction, NDT algorithm is used to further realize the positioning of unmanned vehicles. The experimental results show that the method can effectively construct the point cloud image, reduce the registration time of point cloud, and has good registration accuracy. Through the validation of the dataset, the positioning experiment can be completed by randomly placing the unmanned vehicle in a certain position on the constructed map.

With the development of computer vision technologies, 3D reconstruction has become a hotspot. At present, 3D reconstruction relies heavily on expensive equipment and has poor real-time performance. In this paper, we aim at solving the problem of 3D reconstruction of an indoor scene with large vertical span. In this paper, we propose a novel approach for 3D reconstruction of indoor scenes with only a Kinect. Firstly, this method uses a Kinect sensor to get color images and depth images of an indoor scene. Secondly, the combination of scale-invariant feature transform and random sample consensus algorithm is used to determine the transformation matrix of adjacent frames, which can be seen as the initial value of iterative closest point (ICP). Thirdly, we establish the relative coordinate relation between pair-wise frames which are the initial point cloud data by using ICP. Finally, we achieve the 3D visual reconstruction model of indoor scene by the top-down image registration of point cloud data. This approach not only mitigates the sensor perspective restriction and achieves the indoor scene reconstruction of large vertical span, but also develops the fast algorithm of indoor scene reconstruction with large amount of cloud data. The experimental results show that the proposed algorithm has better accuracy, better reconstruction effect, and less running time for point cloud registration. In addition, the proposed method has great potential applied to 3D simultaneous location and mapping.

Abstract. Remote sensing techniques are an important tool in fluvial transport monitoring, since they allow for effective evaluation of the volume of transported material. Nevertheless, there is no methodology for automatic calculation of movement parameters of individual rocks. These parameters can be determined by point cloud registration. Hence, the goal of this study is to develop a robust algorithm for terrestrial laser scanning point cloud registration. The registration is based on Iterative Closest Point algorithm, which requires well established initial parameters of transformation. Thus, we propose to calculate the initial parameters based on key points representing the maximum of Gaussian curvature. For each key point the set of geometrical features is calculated. The key points are then matched between two point clouds as a nearest neighbor in feature domain. Different combinations of neighborhood sizes, feature subsets, metrics and number of nearest neighbors were tested to obtain the highest ratio between properly and improperly matched key points. Finally, RANSAC algorithm was used to calculate the initial transformation parameters between the point clouds and the ICP algorithm was used for calculation of final transformation parameters. The investigations carried out on sample point clouds representing rocks enabled the adjustment of parameters of the algorithm and showed that the Gaussian curvature can be used as a 3-dimentional key point detector for such objects. The proposed algorithm enabled to register point clouds with the mean distance between point clouds equal to 3 mm.

Self-supervised rigid transformation equivariance for accurate 3D point cloud registration

Abstract. In order to reconstruct the three-dimensional model of the soybean rapidly and efficiently, this paper analyzes the registration effect of point clouds of soybean plants from multiple angles. First, the Kinect V2 camera is used to obtain the point cloud information of soybean plants at 24 different angles, which means that, the images are taken at intervals of 15 degree angles. Second, the obtained point cloud information is subjected to preprocessing operations such as straight through filtering and outlier filtering. Thirdly, two representative point cloud registration algorithms are investigated, which include local features based FPFH (Fast point feature histograms) and probability distribution based NDT (Normal distributions transform). Meanwhile, the FPFH-ICP and NDT-ICP are used to perform pairwise registration for point cloud data at different perspectives. Finally, time cost and accuracy of the above two registration strategies are compared and analyzed. The experimental results show that the NDT-ICP soybean plant point cloud registration algorithm is superior to that of FPFH-ICP in terms of time-consuming, registration accuracy, and adaptation at different angles. At the same time, it is found that when the image acquisition interval between two point clouds is less than or equal to 45 degrees, the adaptability to different point cloud registration algorithms is more robust, and the registration error is less.

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.

With the widespread application of large-scale 3D point cloud data in real-world scenarios, efficient and accurate point cloud registration has become a crucial challenge. We propose an end-to-end point cloud registration method based on the Transformer architecture. This method addresses the issues of low overlap and registration in large scenes, exhibiting strong algorithmic versatility and efficiency. We introduce a combination of dynamic position encoding and ternary angular position encoding within the Transformer, effectively enhancing the representation capability of point cloud data and algorithmic generality, thus better tackling point cloud registration challenges in large scenes. Additionally, to enhance the learning capacity of the attention mechanism, we employ an improved cross-attention mechanism that multiplies the softmax with adaptive weights, enabling the model to capture key information within the point cloud more accurately. In the decoding stage, we introduce a multi-scale feature fusion approach that fully exploits the multi-layer information in point cloud data, further improving registration accuracy and robustness. Through the fusion of multi-scale features, we effectively mitigate information loss and handle matching problems between point clouds of varying sizes. Experimental results demonstrate the excellence of our method in addressing low overlap and registration tasks in large scenes, validated across multiple datasets including 3DMatch, ModelNet, KITTI, and MVP-RG.

Understanding the complex interactions between genotype-environment dynamics is fundamental for optimizing crop improvement. However, traditional phenotyping methods limit assessments to the end of the growing season, restricting continuous crop monitoring. To address this limitation, we developed a methodology for spatiotemporal registration of time-series 3D point cloud data, enabling field phenotyping over time for accurate crop growth tracking. Leveraging multi-scan terrestrial laser scanning (TLS), we captured high-resolution 3D LiDAR data in a cotton breeding field across various stages of the growing season to generate four-dimensional (4D) crop models, seamlessly integrating spatial and temporal dimensions. Our registration procedure involved an initial pairwise terrain-based matching for rough alignment, followed by a bird's-eye view adjustment for fine registration. Point clouds collected throughout nine sessions across the growing season were successfully registered both spatially and temporally, with average registration errors of approximately 3cm. We used the generated 4D models to monitor canopy height (CH) and volume (CV) for eleven cotton genotypes over two months. The consistent height reference established via our spatiotemporal registration process enabled precise estimations of CH (R 2=0.95, RMSE = 7.6cm). Additionally, we analyzed the relationship between CV and the interception of photosynthetically active radiation (IPAR f ), finding that it followed a curve with exponential saturation, consistent with theoretical models, with a standard error of regression (SER) of 11%. In addition, we compared mathematical models from the Richards family of sigmoid curves for crop growth modeling, finding that the logistic model effectively captured CH and CV evolution, aiding in identifying significant genotype differences. Our novel TLS-based digital phenotyping methodology enhances precision and efficiency in field phenotyping over time, advancing plant phenomics and empowering efficient decision-making for crop improvement efforts.

Point cloud registration is an important task in robotics and autonomous driving to estimate the ego-motion of the vehicle. Recent advances following the coarse-to-fine manner show promising potential in point cloud registration. However, existing methods rely on good superpoint correspondences, which are hard to be obtained reliably and efficiently, thus resulting in less robust and accurate point cloud registration. In this paper, we propose a novel network, named RDMNet, to find dense point correspondences coarse-to-fine and improve final pose estimation based on such reliable correspondences. Our RDMNet uses a devised 3D-RoFormer mechanism to first extract distinctive superpoints and generates reliable superpoints matches between two point clouds. The proposed 3D-RoFormer fuses 3D position information into the transformer network, efficiently exploiting point clouds’ contextual and geometric information to generate robust superpoint correspondences. RDMNet then propagates the sparse superpoints matches to dense point matches using the neighborhood information for accurate point cloud registration. We extensively evaluate our method on multiple datasets from different environments. The experimental results demonstrate that our method outperforms existing state-of-the-art approaches in all tested datasets with a strong generalization ability.