[Insight-users] Synthetic LiDAR Scanner

[David Doria]

I have written a synthetic LiDAR scanner in c++ using VTK and VXL (it could
easily be converted to use ITK data structures). That is, rather than
setting up a collection of objects in real life and actually sending lasers
into the scene, one can simply create a scene out of 3d models and "scan" it
by casting rays at the models. This seems like something that could be a
huge help to any researchers that work with 3D model/surface/point data and
LiDAR data. I'm sure many researchers have their own implementations - after
all it is a very straightforward process (simply a bunch of ray triangle
intersections - which I have sped up using VTK's octree) but I think it
would be very useful to someone starting out in the field and to attempt to
unify some datasets. I've used it to produce data sets for which a ground
truth is known in order to ensure algorithms are behaving properly before
moving to "real" LiDAR scans. Also, noise can be added to the points to
attempt to simulate a real LiDAR scan for researchers who do not have access
to the very expensive equipment required to obtain real scans.

The inputs are:

Scanner position (3D coordinate)
Min/Max phi angle (how far "up and down" the scanner should scan)
Min/Max theta angle (how far "left and right" the scanner should scan)
Scanner "forward" (the phi=0, theta=0 direction)
Angular sample spacing or number of points to acquire in the theta and phi
directions (so the "grid" is a total of (num_theta x num_phi) points)

The outputs are:
A .ptx file that maintains implicitly the structure of the scan (points are
ordered as they were taken in "strips"). This is the output given by a real
Leica scanner.
A .vtp file that is simply an unorganized point cloud of the scan returns.

Can I get some feedback on if this is a reasonable extension to ITK or VXL
capabilities?

Thanks,

David
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://www.itk.org/pipermail/insight-users/attachments/20090807/f6615ef9/attachment.htm>