More accurate terrestrial laser scanners and range cameras

Acquiring 3-D information for the geometric modeling of objects up to 100 m is essential for applications like industrial site reconstruction, cultural heritage monitoring, or city modeling. The accuracy requirement is between ±0.5 mm and ±2 cm, depending on the application. While laser scanners and range sensors such as time-of-flight cameras measure angles and ranges, the results are often processed as 3-D point clouds. The resulting range calibration methodologies have great potential for error.

Using new range calibration methodologies, Norbert Pfeifer and colleagues at the Institute of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing, Vienna University of Technology (Vienna, Austria; www.ipf.tuwien.ac.at) have reduced the systematic errors in laser scanning point clouds by more than 50% and improved overall accuracy. Their work was presented during the August 2009 SPIE Optics + Photonics symposium in San Diego, CA.