Inner Constraints for Planar Features

Geometric features, planes in particular, have recently replaced signalised points as the object space primitives of choice for a number of fundamental terrestrial laser scanner data processing tasks such as registration, self‐calibration and deformation monitoring. The inner constraints for planes are developed in this paper owing to their importance as the optimal means of datum definition. Pertinent least squares adjustment results from several terrestrial laser scanner datasets are presented to demonstrate the impact of planar inner constraints on registration and self‐calibration. When solution quality is measured in terms of parameter precision and correlation, it is demonstrated that the planes should be constrained for both laser scanner registration and self‐calibration with a basic additional parameter set.