Members:
S. Transue,
M. Choi
Description: The process of accurately aligning 3D range scans to reconstruct a virtual model is a complex task in generic circumstances. Yet by exploiting the data characteristics common to many mobile 3D scanning devices, we propose a two phase alignment solution that improves the alignment provided by the iterative closest point (ICP) algorithm. Current approaches target how the ICP algorithm aligns two range scans based on modifying minimization functions, sampling functions, and point correspondence techniques. However, while these approaches have provided subtle improvements in the alignment process, the ICP algorithm is still incapable of aligning low resolution range scans with very little overlap. Based on our proposed algorithm, we are able to increase the accuracy of the alignment provided by the ICP algorithm by 40% on low resolution scan pairs and we demonstrate the versatility of this approach by accurately aligning a variety scan pairs with small overlap regions.