Development of algorithm to extract edges of buildings using terrestrial LiDAR data

Abstract

The present paper proposes an algorithm to automatically extract the edges of buildings from terrestrial LiDAR data for the sake of three-dimensional modeling. Because three-dimensional LiDAR data are difficult to process for the extraction, first, two-dimensional data (r_xy,z) is obtained from the original threedimensional data. Next, two gravity points were calculated using several points in the neighbor of the target point in order to reduce the effects of the noise contaminated in the data. Finally, the interior angle of the target point with two gravity points was defined as an indicator for the edges. The results show that the algorithm can function robustly to extract the edges. While the proposed algorithm is based on the two-dimensional processing, it can be applied for the three-dimensional coordinate by merging different scan line results. It is concluded that the proposed algorithm is potential to apply for the three-dimensional modeling of buildings.