A Novel Airborne 3D Laser Point Cloud Hole Repair Algorithm Considering Topographic Features

Hole repair processing is an important part of point cloud data processing in airborne 3-dimensional (3D) laser scanning technology. Due to the fragmentation and irregularity of the surface morphology, when applying the 3D laser scanning technology to mountain mapping, the conventional mathematical cloud-based point cloud hole repair method is not ideal in practical applications. In order to solve this problem, we propose to repair the valley and ridge line first, and then repair the point cloud hole. The main technical steps of the method include the following points: First, the valley and ridge feature lines are extracted by the GIS slope analysis method; Then, the valley and ridge line missing from the hole are repaired by the mathematical interpolation method, and the repaired results are edited and inserted to the original point cloud; Finally, the traditional repair method is used to repair the point cloud hole whose valley line and ridge line have been repaired. Three experiments were designed and implemented in the east bank of the Xiaobaini River to test the performance of the proposed method. The results showed that compared with the direct point cloud hole repair method in Geomagic Studio software, the average repair accuracy of the proposed method, in the 16m buffer zone of valley line and ridge line, is increased from 56.31cm to 31.49cm. The repair performance is significantly improved.