Evaluation of 2D affine — hand-crafted detectors for feature-based TLS point cloud registration

Abstract The development of modern surveying methods, particularly, Terrestrial Laser Scanning (TLS), has found wide application in protecting and monitoring engineering and objects and sites of cultural heritage. For this reason, it is crucial that several factors a˛ecting the correctness of point cloud registration are considered, including the correctness of the distribution of control points (both signalised and natural), the quality of the process, and robustness analysis. The aim of this article is to evaluate the quality and correctness of TLS registration based on point clouds converted to raster form (in spherical mapping) and hand-crafted detectors. The expanded Structure-from-Motion (SfM) was used to detect the tie points for TLS registration and reliability assessment. The results demonstrated that affine detectors are useful in detecting a high number of key points (increased for point detectors by 8–12 times and for blob detectors by about 10–24 times), improving the quality and TLS registration completeness. For the registration accuracy of point cloud on signalised check points, the lower values can be noted for maximum RMSE errors for blob affine detectors than detectors and larger values for corner detectors and affine detectors (not more than 4 mm in the extreme cases, typically 2 mm). The commonly-applied target-based registration method yields similar results (di˛erences do not exceed – in extreme cases – 3.5 mm, typically less than 2 mm), proving that using affine detectors in the TLS registration process is and reasonable and can be recommended.