Point cloud

{{Main|Point set registration}}

When scanning a scene in real world using Lidar, the captured point clouds contain snippets of the scene, which requires alignment to generate a full map of the scanned environment.

Point clouds are often aligned with 3D models or with other point clouds, a process termed point set registration.

The Iterative closest point (ICP) algorithm can be used to align two point clouds that have an overlap between them, and are separated by a rigid transform.{{Cite web |title=Continuous ICP (CICP) |url=https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~halismai/cicp/ |access-date=2024-06-26 |website=www.cs.cmu.edu}} Point clouds with elastic transforms can also be aligned by using a non-rigid variant of the ICP (NICP).{{Cite journal |last1=Li |first1=Hao |last2=Sumner |first2=Robert W. |last3=Pauly |first3=Mark |date=July 2008 |title=Global Correspondence Optimization for Non-Rigid Registration of Depth Scans |url=https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-8659.2008.01282.x |journal=Computer Graphics Forum |language=en |volume=27 |issue=5 |pages=1421–1430 |doi=10.1111/j.1467-8659.2008.01282.x |issn=0167-7055}} With advancements in machine learning in recent years, point cloud registration may also be done using end-to-end neural networks.{{Cite journal |last1=Lu |first1=Weixin |last2=Wan |first2=Guowei |last3=Zhou |first3=Yao |last4=Fu |first4=Xiangyu |last5=Yuan |first5=Pengfei |last6=Song |first6=Shiyu |date=2019 |title=DeepVCP: An End-to-End Deep Neural Network for Point Cloud Registration |url=https://openaccess.thecvf.com/content_ICCV_2019/html/Lu_DeepVCP_An_End-to-End_Deep_Neural_Network_for_Point_Cloud_Registration_ICCV_2019_paper.html |pages=12–21}}

For industrial metrology or inspection using industrial computed tomography, the point cloud of a manufactured part can be aligned to an existing model and compared to check for differences. Geometric dimensions and tolerances can also be extracted directly from the point cloud.

File:Extract Video Beit Ghazaleh Orthophoto Survey AG&P 2017.gif, a heritage site in danger in Aleppo (Syria){{Citation|title=English: Image from a very high precision 3D laser scanner survey (1.2 billion data points) of Beit Ghazaleh -- a heritage site in danger in Aleppo Syria. This was a collaborative scientific work for the study, safeguarding and emergency consolidation of remains of the structure.|date=2017-11-02|url=https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Extract_Video_Beit_Ghazaleh_Orthophoto_Survey_AG&P_2017.gif|access-date=2018-06-11}}]]

File:Synthesizing 3D Shapes via Modeling Multi-View Depth Maps and Silhouettes With Deep Generative Networks.pngs or silhouettes and visualizing them in dense point clouds{{Cite web|url=https://github.com/Amir-Arsalan/Synthesize3DviaDepthOrSil|title=Soltani, A. A., Huang, H., Wu, J., Kulkarni, T. D., & Tenenbaum, J. B. Synthesizing 3D Shapes via Modeling Multi-View Depth Maps and Silhouettes With Deep Generative Networks. In Proceedings of the IEEE Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (pp. 1511-1519).|website=GitHub|date=27 January 2022}}]]

While point clouds can be directly rendered and inspected,Levoy, M. and Whitted, T., {{cite web|url=http://graphics.stanford.edu/papers/points|title=The use of points as a display primitive}}. Technical Report 85-022, Computer Science Department, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, January, 1985Rusinkiewicz, S. and Levoy, M. 2000. QSplat: a multiresolution point rendering system for large meshes. In Siggraph 2000. ACM, New York, NY, 343–352. DOI= http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/344779.344940 point clouds are often converted to polygon mesh or triangle mesh models, non-uniform rational B-spline (NURBS) surface models, or CAD models through a process commonly referred to as surface reconstruction.

There are many techniques for converting a point cloud to a 3D surface.[https://hal.inria.fr/hal-01348404v2/document Berger, M., Tagliasacchi, A., Seversky, L. M., Alliez, P., Guennebaud, G., Levine, J. A., Sharf, A. and Silva, C. T. (2016), A Survey of Surface Reconstruction from Point Clouds. Computer Graphics Forum.] Some approaches, like Delaunay triangulation, alpha shapes, and ball pivoting, build a network of triangles over the existing vertices of the point cloud, while other approaches convert the point cloud into a volumetric distance field and reconstruct the implicit surface so defined through a marching cubes algorithm.[http://meshlabstuff.blogspot.com/2009/09/meshing-point-clouds.html Meshing Point Clouds] A short tutorial on how to build surfaces from point clouds

In geographic information systems, point clouds are one of the sources used to make digital elevation model of the terrain.[http://terrain.cs.duke.edu/pubs/lidar_interpolation.pdf From Point Cloud to Grid DEM: A Scalable Approach] They are also used to generate 3D models of urban environments.[http://www.isprs.org/proceedings/XXXVIII/part3/a/pdf/91_XXXVIII-part3A.pdf K. Hammoudi, F. Dornaika, B. Soheilian, N. Paparoditis. Extracting Wire-frame Models of Street Facades from 3D Point Clouds and the Corresponding Cadastral Map. International Archives of Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences (IAPRS), vol. 38, part 3A, pp. 91–96, Saint-Mandé, France, 1–3 September 2010.] Drones are often used to collect a series of RGB images which can be later processed on a computer vision algorithm platform such as on AgiSoft Photoscan, Pix4D, DroneDeploy or Hammer Missions to create RGB point clouds from where distances and volumetric estimations can be made.{{citation needed|date=March 2018}}

Point clouds can also be used to represent volumetric data, as is sometimes done in medical imaging. Using point clouds, multi-sampling and data compression can be achieved.{{cite journal|last1=Sitek|display-authors=etal|year=2006|title=Tomographic Reconstruction Using an Adaptive Tetrahedral Mesh Defined by a Point Cloud|journal=IEEE Trans. Med. Imaging|volume=25|issue=9|pages=1172–9|doi=10.1109/TMI.2006.879319|pmid=16967802|s2cid=27545238|url=https://zenodo.org/record/1232253}}

MPEG began standardizing point cloud compression (PCC) with a Call for Proposal (CfP) in 2017.{{cite web |url=http://www.mpeg-pcc.org/ |title=MPEG Point Cloud Compression |author= |access-date=2020-10-22}}{{cite journal |last1=Schwarz |first1=Sebastian |last2=Preda |first2=Marius |last3=Baroncini |first3=Vittorio |last4=Budagavi |first4=Madhukar |last5=Cesar |first5=Pablo |last6=Chou |first6=Philip A. |last7=Cohen |first7=Robert A. |last8=Krivokuća |first8=Maja |last9=Lasserre |first9=Sébastien |last10=Li |first10=Zhu |last11=Llach |first11=Joan |last12=Mammou |first12=Khaled |last13=Mekuria |first13=Rufael |last14=Krivokuća |first14=Maja |last15=Nakagami |first15=Ohji |last16=Siahaan |first16=Ernestasia |last17=Tabatabai |first17=Ali |last18=Tourapis |first18=Alexis M. |last19=Zakharchenko |first19=Vladyslav |date=2018-12-10 |title=Emerging MPEG Standards for Point Cloud Compression |journal= IEEE Journal on Emerging and Selected Topics in Circuits and Systems |volume=9 |issue=1 |pages=133–148 |doi=10.1109/JETCAS.2018.2885981 |doi-access=free}}{{cite journal |last1=Graziosi |first1=Danillo |last2=Nakagami |first2=Ohji |last3=Kuma |first3=Satoru |last4=Zaghetto |first4=Alexandre |last5=Suzuki |first5=Teruhiko |last6=Tabatabai |first6=Ali |date=2020-04-03 |title=An overview of ongoing point cloud compression standardization activities: video-based (V-PCC) and geometry-based (G-PCC) |journal=APSIPA Transactions on Signal and Information Processing |volume=9 |pages=1–17 |doi=10.1017/ATSIP.2020.12 |doi-access=free}} Three categories of point clouds were identified: category 1 for static point clouds, category 2 for dynamic point clouds, and category 3 for Lidar sequences (dynamically acquired point clouds). Two technologies were finally defined: G-PCC (Geometry-based PCC, ISO/IEC 23090 part 9){{Cite web|title=ISO/IEC DIS 23090-9|url=https://www.iso.org/cms/render/live/en/sites/isoorg/contents/data/standard/07/89/78990.html|access-date=2020-06-07|website=ISO|language=en}} for category 1 and category 3; and V-PCC (Video-based PCC, ISO/IEC 23090 part 5){{Cite web|title=ISO/IEC DIS 23090-5|url=https://www.iso.org/standard/73025.html|access-date=2020-10-21|website=ISO|language=en}} for category 2. The first test models were developed in October 2017, one for G-PCC (TMC13) and another one for V-PCC (TMC2). Since then, the two test models have evolved through technical contributions and collaboration, and the first version of the PCC standard specifications was expected to be finalized in 2020 as part of the ISO/IEC 23090 series on the coded representation of immersive media content.{{Cite web|title=Immersive Media Architectures {{!}} MPEG|url=https://mpeg.chiariglione.org/standards/mpeg-i/immersive-media-architectures|access-date=2020-06-07|website=mpeg.chiariglione.org}}

• Skand – Democratising spatial data
• Euclideon – 3D graphics engine which makes use of a point cloud search algorithm to render images
• MeshLab – open source tool to manage point clouds and convert them into 3D triangular meshes
• CloudCompare – open source tool to view, edit, and process high density 3D point clouds
• Point Cloud Library (PCL) – comprehensive BSD open source library for n-D point clouds and 3D geometry processing

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Category:3D computer graphics

Category:Geometry processing