The Accuracy Assessment of Terrestrial and Mobile Lidar Systems for 3D Modelling

Abstract

The use of high-precision and sufficiently collected point clouds for 3D data modeling is very important for geomatics and other branches of engineering (such as mechanical and construction), and architectural applications. For this reason, various filtering and interpolation methods are improved for 3D modeling. However, if the point cloud is collected inaccurate or missing, the 3D data modeling is always an issue. Therefore, before the 3D modeling process, the point positioning accuracy and resolution of the point cloud should be investigated. The accuracy assessment can be performed by comparing data obtained from a measurement system that is considered to be more accurate. These analyses are used the accuracy assessment of the maps produced by different Lidar (Light Detection and Ranging) point clouds. In this study, the accuracy of the point clouds obtained using Terrestrial Lidar Systems (TLS) and Mobile Lidar Systems (MLS) was determined by using the Euclidean distances between the surface points measured by total station. The results showed that the accuracy of the TLS system was better than the MLS system. In addition, while TLS should be preferred in studies requiring high accuracy such as 3D cultural heritage documentation, MLS should be preferred in applications such as various topographic maps and 3D city models.