Zhizhong Kang

Automatic Registration of Terrestrial Scan Data based on Matching Corresponding Points from Reflectivity Images

In this paper, an algorithm is presented for automatic registration of terrestrial point clouds based on reflectivity images captured from terrestrial laser scanner. Firstly, the Moravec interest operator is used to extract feature points in the left one of two adjacent images and probabilistic relaxation is employed to match corresponding points for those feature points. The strategy of matching on image pyramid is used to improve the reliability and speed of image matching. Reflectivity images usually have low resolution, moreover, distinct geometric difference exits between adjacent images which are close-ranged. Consequently, the probability of erroneous matching becomes high. Therefore, geometric constraint (i.e. distance invariance) of 3D corresponding point pairs is used to eliminate erroneous corresponding point pairs. Iterative matching process is implemented to acquire high accuracy and stability. Thereafter, absolute orientation in photogrammetry is employed to compute six transformation parameters separated in rotation and translation. Experiments were implemented to testify the method, presented in this paper, on indoor and outdoor point clouds. Processes for those point clouds are fully automatic and acquire a good accuracy up to the order of millimeter.

An efficient rendering method for large vector data on large terrain models

This paper presents an efficient way to render large-scale vector maps on level-of-detail (LOD)digital elevation models (DEMs). By using the frame buffer and Voronoi diagram, we achieve a rapid simplification of large-scale vector maps while keeping their original topological relationships. With the simplified maps, we establish level-of-detail vector map models. In the detailed level, we use the stencil shadow volume approach to render the map accurately, and in the coarse level we use substitute techniques to render the map approximately yet more quickly. The method proposed in this paper is universally applicable to rendering vector maps on various LOD terrain models, and the overlaying performance is independent of the complexity of underlying terrain surfaces. By use of the view frustum culling and sub-region index techniques, the impact of complexity of vector maps is reduced, and the rendering time is restricted to a certain scope. Thereby, we can achieve seamless and rapid rendering of large-scale vector maps on LOD terrain surfaces.

Continuous Extraction of Subway Tunnel Cross Sections Based on Terrestrial Point Clouds

An efficient method for the continuous extraction of subway tunnel cross sections using terrestrial point clouds is proposed. First, the continuous central axis of the tunnel is extracted using a 2D projection of the point cloud and curve fitting using the RANSAC (RANdom SAmple Consensus) algorithm, and the axis is optimized using a global extraction strategy based on segment-wise fitting. The cross-sectional planes, which are orthogonal to the central axis, are then determined for every interval. The cross-sectional points are extracted by intersecting straight lines that rotate orthogonally around the central axis within the cross-sectional plane with the tunnel point cloud. An interpolation algorithm based on quadric parametric surface fitting, using the BaySAC (Bayesian SAmpling Consensus) algorithm, is proposed to compute the cross-sectional point when it cannot be acquired directly from the tunnel points along the extraction direction of interest. Because the standard shape of the tunnel cross section is a circle, circle fitting is implemented using RANSAC to reduce the noise. The proposed approach is tested on terrestrial point clouds that cover a 150-m-long segment of a Shanghai subway tunnel, which were acquired using a LMS VZ-400 laser scanner. The results indicate that the proposed quadric parametric surface fitting using the optimized BaySAC achieves a higher overall fitting accuracy (0.9 mm) than the accuracy (1.6 mm) obtained by the plain RANSAC. The results also show that the proposed cross section extraction algorithm can achieve high accuracy (millimeter level, which was assessed by comparing the fitted radii with the designed radius of the cross section and comparing corresponding chord lengths in different cross sections) and high efficiency (less than 3 s/section on average).

Efficient Simplification of Large Vector Maps Rendered onto 3D Landscapes

Real-time rendering of large scale vector maps over terrain surfaces requires displaying substantial numbers of polylines and polygons. The proposed approach simplifies such maps, permitting more efficient rendering and reducing latency in the display and manipulation of a virtual environment.

Interactive panoramic map-like views for 3D mountain navigation

In 3D terrain navigation applications, the views based on general perspective projection often find features of interest (FOIs) being occluded. As an alternative, panorama-like views preserve the similarity between 3D scenes before and after the deformations while ensuring the visibility of interested features. In this paper, an automatic method for generating panoramic map-like views is proposed in mountainous areas. The created panorama-like views by moving up the view position as well as the terrain deformation can successfully avoid occlusions of the FOIs. The final views also ensure the resemblance in appearance for the FOIs and landscapes, and thus satisfy the demand for interactive occlusion-free navigation in 3D complex terrain environments.

Web-based visualization of spatial objects in 3DGIS

Adaptive rendering large and complex spatial data has become an important research issue in a 3DGIS application. In order to transmit the data to the client efficiently, this paper proposes a node-layer data model to manage the 3D scene. Because the large spatial data and limited network bandwidth are the main bottlenecks of web-based 3DGIS, a client/server architecture including progressive transmission methods and multiresolution representations, together with the spatial index, are developed to improve the performance. All this makes the application quite scalable. Experimental results reveal that the application works appropriately.

Adaptive multi-resolution labeling in virtual landscapes

Labeling plays an important role in map production, attaching specific texts to related geographic elements to provide clear environmental references. In three-dimensional geographical information systems (3DGISs), however, cluttering happens fairly commonly because of the unexpected overlapping and occlusion among labels and related objects, and results in an ambiguous and obscure environment. It generally also takes large computing power and memory to visualize spatial entities. Aimed at both unambiguous and efficient 3D map display, this article proposes an adaptive multi-resolution labeling method to deal with point, polyline, and polygon features labeling in a 3D landscape. It implements adaptive placement and view-driven label filtering without obscuring other visual features. The experiments indicated that the display of overlapping labels and label popping are reduced significantly with less computation burden while retaining the rendering quality.

Web-based terrain and vector maps visualization for Wenchuan earthquake

This paper presents a Web-based three-dimensional Geographic Information System (3DGIS) for Wenchuan earthquake disaster assessment. With the help of information technology resources, geoscientists are in a position to learn more about the structure of the earthquake in efficient ways. Due to huge spatial datasets of Wenchuan, China and narrow network bandwidth, general-purpose applications are difficult to transmit and visualize these datasets on the network. The application aims to interactively represent and transfer large spatial objects of Wenchuan County, China, as well as for dynamically rendering them in networking environments. Level-of-detail (LOD) terrain models and vector maps are created, and the server–client architecture is presented. The application provides an effective way for powerful access and manipulation of large-scale Wenchuan datasets.