Extraction of Geometric Primitives from Point Cloud Data

Object detection and parameter estimation in point cloud data is a relevant subject to robotics, reverse engineering, computer vision, and sport mechanics. In this paper a software is presented for fully-automatic object detection and parameter estimation in unordered, incomplete and error-contaminated point cloud with a large number of data points. The software consists of three algorithmic modules each for object identification, point segmentation, and model fitting. The newly developed algorithms for orthogonal distance fitting (ODF) play a fundamental role in each of the three modules. The ODF algorithms estimate the model parameters by minimizing the square sum of the shortest distances between the model feature and the measurement points. Curvature analysis of the local quadric surfaces fitted to small patches of point cloud provides the necessary seed information for automatic model selection, point segmentation, and model fitting. The performance of the software on a variety of point cloud data will be demonstrated live.