3 Pre-processing & Editing

Pre-processing is the first workflow step after scan import. All the Grid Point Clouds have to be pre-processed before going on with data elaboration The toolbar: reminds the user the suggested workflow steps

Load a Grid point cloud

3 Pre-processing & Editing

IMPORTANT NOTE: preprocessing step works only with Grid Cloud of Points A Grid cloud of point can be viewed as image where the number of pixels (pix) are equal to the number of point the scanner has acquired (valid and invalid).

2D pixels of the Grid

3D points

RGB value

In the preprocessing parameter you will find MASK BORDER (pix). This parameter define the dimension in pixels of a square mask (the kernel of the filter ), which give you the possibility to set up how many points (=pixels) you want to take into account around the point you are analysing. For example: Mask border [pix] = 1 means a square mask of 3 x 3 points around the central one to be filtered. The square mask (of side 2border+1) is centred at the current pixel Mask border [pix] = 2 -> 5 x 5 windows According to the Mask border dimension the filter will have different effects following detailed

3 Pre-processing & Editing

Select one or more Grid point clouds Right button mouse Preprocessing for each grid point cloud a set of filters and computation can be set-up and applied

3 Pre-processing & Editing

Pre-processing is applied for 2 main purposes: 1) noise removal filter for raw data 2) addition of extra information to raw grid for further processing steps (i.e. registration, meshing, etc.)

3 noise removal filters can be applied to improve Grid quality (numbers 1,2,4) 4 options are available for each raw

3 computations can be done to derive and add information to Grid Raw data (numbers 3,5,6)

3 Pre-processing & Editing

Noise Removal Filter to remove points according to range distance or reflectance values: Min/Max range [m]: lower/upper threshold of the range All pixels outside this range will be filtered Min/Max reflectance [reflectance value between 0 and 1] All measurements that have an intensity value outside the given interval will be filtered

Filter to smooth the point cloud from local noise roughness. For each point (=pixel) the software assigns the median value calculated using the N point in the square mash centered on the same point. For example Mask border=1 means a 3x3 windows, so the median is calculated according to 9 points. Larger is the Mask border, smoother is the final point cloud

Filter to remove wrong points aligned along the laser ray direction (for example points close to edges see next slide -, or points viewed from a steep angle, or mixed points from phase shift laser). Defined the laser ray as the vector between the scanner and the acquired point (in red), the software calculates the angle between the laser ray and the vector connecting the center point with each points in the mask. If at list one angle is < the Min incident angle, the acquired point is deleted. Higher is the Mask border, more points will be deleted. Higher is the Min incident angle, more points will be deleted

y Laser ra

3 Pre-processing & Editing

Noise Removal Example of mixed points to be filtered: points close to edges

3 Pre-processing & Editing

Noise Removal During the pre-processing is possible to remove points according to a user defined mask

1. Select a scan and save a 2D image from your scan

2. Edit in black color the area to delete using any external software (i.e. Photo Point, Coral Draw, etc.)

3. Run pre-processing: set as Noise Removal the Mask Filter and assign the absolute path of your edited image

4. The black points of the mask will be automatically delete

3 Pre-processing & Editing

Computation

Computes the local surface tangent plane for each point, based on the neighbourhood of the pixel. Smaller is the mask border more local will be the tangent plane calculation.

Filter to computes geometrically significant line features from the grid point cloud. Two types of edges are extracted: - Depth discontinuities (or jump edges) that occur when the scanner hits an occlusion and therefore the measured range jumps from a foreground to a background value. - Orientation discontinuities (or crease edges) that occur when the object has a sudden change of its surface orientation. Mask border [pix]: the kernel of the filter is a square mask (of side 2border+1) centred at the current pixel Min depth discontinuity to flag [m]: set absolute depth discontinuity according to the object scale Min orientation discontinuity to flag [deg]: the current point is marked if its normal differs from the adjacent ones of at least this angle Edge detection results will be used fro Meshing (see Quick Guide n.5 Meshing&MeshEditing)

3 Pre-processing & Editing

Computation

Computes a confidence value for each measurement, which is a measure for the reliability of the given range measurement. The accuracy does not only depend on the type of scanner used, but amongst others also on the following factors: - incident angle between the laser beam and the tangent plane of the target - distance to the target - material of the object - intensity of the reflected signal The confidence value is computed as a weighted sum of the surface normal, the range value and the reflectance value. Min/Max range [m]: the range is weighted by normalizing it within this interval Scale factor: the confidence value calculated for each pixel is multiplied with this scale. Thus the user has the possibility to decrease or increase the weight for a given scan manually, for example because a scanner with higher accuracy has been used during acquisition. Weight of range/reflectance/inclination: modify the weight as desired

3 Pre-processing & Editing

The pre-processing can use the multi-processor characteristics of your PC

You can run the pre-processing from the same scan several times. If you need to reset the previous preprocessing effects, switch on the Use back up option

Run the pre-preprocessing and view the results!

3 Pre-processing & Editing

Is possible to save pre-processing parameters and load them for other scans or projects

The preprocessing parameters are saved in a XML file

3 Pre-processing & Editing

View the Pre-processing results: preprocessed scan has the P icon

Noise removal filters are visible looking in detail the point clouds. i.e. false mixed points are cleaned

Compute filters add new information layers to the Grid

Inclination

Confidence

Edges extraction: Right button of the mouse on the Grid filter tool extract edges Edges can be exported as 3D DXF polylines

3 Pre-processing & Editing

Point cloud editing in 3D: To select a portion of a point cloud press the sample button , choose one of the selecting mode Press the left mouse button and make your selection. If you want to delete points in or out the selected area choose All the Grid (or Unstructured) point clouds loaded and hided will be cleaned

Important notes: 1) When you are in sample mode, the view point is blocked. To go back to standard navigation press the Pivot button 2) Only the points deleted from Grid point clouds (and not from unstructured ones) could be recovered

To recover the deleted point: 1. Filtering 2. Edit 2D 3. Select the deleted area in 2D view 4. Press undelete

3 Pre-processing & Editing

Point cloud editing in 2D Is possible to edit each single Grid in the 2D view (Filtering Edit 2D). To zoom in/out from the 2D view: press Alt key and mouse wheel.

Is possible to display different color layer

Is possible to Mirror, Flip and Rotate the view.

From the 2D view is possible (with different selection modes) to: Copy, Cut and Undelete scan portion.

3 Pre-processing & Editing

Edit grid color layer Each grid point clouds can have different color layers: each pixel (=points) can be colored with reflectance, range, inclination or confidence color. You can change the color layer from the Property Browser windows You can also load new color layers or modify the current ones. For example: 1) From the edit 2D windows save the current colour layer as an image 2) Edit the color layer in any software. Just do not modify the image size 3) From Color tool/Manage color, load the modified image (Add from image) 4) Applying the new color layer in the property browser, the point will be colored with the new layer

3 Pre-processing & Editing

Point cloud classification Is possible to classify the point clouds according to the gray scale layer (reflectance, range, confidence): 1. Load the point cloud with the desired color layer 2. Press the Pseudo color button 3. From the Pseudo color you can choose the false color palette for points classification set color thresholds define with color the layer you want to display for the point above or below the thresholds keep the points according to the define thresholds.

Deleted points can be always recovered just resetting the thresholds To remove the color palette press the Histogram button and then apply

3 Pre-processing & Editing

Point cloud editing for plane definition: To select a portion of a point cloud press the sample button Press the left mouse button and make your selection. Now press to sample the current lasso. The selected points are underlined in yellow. : press to define a plane fitting the selected , choose one of the selecting mode

The selected points can be used with the following command tools points.

NB: the sample button can be used for both points and meshes