Fast automatic three-dimensional road model reconstruction based on mobile laser scanning system

In the Traffic, Urban planning, and Construction domain, rich three-dimensional information models are throughout a whole life cycle for road application, such as road planning, road development, road operation, road reuse, and road renewal. These three-dimensional models are often constructed using dense three-dimensional point clouds obtained from laser scanning systems. The latest mobile terrestrial laser scanning systems provide an efficient technique for acquiring very dense point clouds along road corridors, so that fast and automated procedures for recognizing or extracting road attributes and reconstructing road three-dimensional models can be developed. In this paper, every major step of the whole road model reconstruction process, from the input point clouds to the finished model, is presented in detail. The results show that the mobile laser scanning system allows an efficient and automatic reconstruction for urban road three-dimensional model.