Step edge detection method for 3D point clouds based on 2D range images

Based on the scanning mechanism of a 3D laser scanner, a step edge detection method for 3D point clouds was proposed in this paper. A point cloud was first converted into a two-dimensional range image. Topological relations between each point can be determined clearly through the range image. The edges in the two-dimensional range image were extracted by the Canny operator and the edge points in three-dimensional points were obtained according to the mapping algorithm. An experiment was conducted by using a LMS-Z620 3D laser scanner of RIGEL. The experiment results further verify that the new method yields a good effect of edge detection.