It is the small details that are unnoticeable and decide everything. Detecting reality as it appears to us can be done with the right technique and instrumentation. Studying multiple cases and comparing our experience in the field we can sum it up as follows, “Noise affects the accuracy of the detected data, and a lack of accuracy is dangerous when the margin of error is small.”
Reconnecting with the article Laser Scanner: Noise and Color – The Best Color for Targets, we have shown you from our direct experience how important the choice of target color can be in order to achieve a top-quality result. However, color is not enough, or rather, it is not the only key aspect of the target.
Using the center point interpolation function also brings improvements in alignment when the center point exists. In fact, with this method it is possible to use multiple points from around the center and perhaps choose the clearest points from around the checkerboard targets to calculate the average.
Based on our tests, the lighter dots were generally less noisy and therefore more accurate than the dark dots in the center of the checkerboard targets.
In order to make the test more complicated, we have arranged very unbalanced targets in the scene and in the minimum number of 3.
The result of rototranslation was really relevant: less than 4 tenths of a millimeter on the 3D residual.
Although it may seem to be an accomplishment beyond one’s needs, aligning clouds correctly is the first step in obtaining orthophotos and thereby high quality papers.
This test is included, along with the target color study, in larger project that eventually led us to the creation of Cloud Designer!
Cloud Designer is the software we have created that now allows us to process the data detected by Laser Scanner in an optimal way, minimizing the margin of error, ensuring maximum precision and accuracy of the detected data.
It is clear that our work is based on direct experience, in order to obtain a good relief with a graphic restitution worthy of our aesthetic and mathematical taste while respecting two fundamentals, precision and accuracy, we experimented with targets by analyzing their position and color. Thus, the high quality of our products is the result of study and experimentation!