DTM Generation from LIDAR Data using Skewness Balancing

LIght Detection And Ranging (LIDAR) data for terrain and land surveying has contributed to many environmental, engineering and civil applications. However, the analysis of Digital Surface Models (DSMs) from complex LIDAR data is still challenging. Commonly, the first task to investigate LIDAR data point clouds is to separate ground and object points as a preparatory step for further object classification. In this paper, the authors present a novel unsupervised segmentation algorithm - skewness balancing - to separate object and ground points efficiently from high resolution LIDAR point clouds by exploiting statistical moments. The results presented in this paper have shown its robustness and its potential for commercial applications.