Total Least-Squares Methods for Active View Registration of Three-Dimensional Line Laser Scanning Data

In this paper a method is proposed to register three-dimensional line laser scanning data acquired in two different viewpoints. The proposed method is based on three-point position measurement by scanning three reference balls to determine the transformation between two views. Since there are errors in laser scanning data and sphere fitting, the two sets of three-point position measurement data at two different views are both subject to errors. For this reason, total least-squares methods are applied to determine the transformation, because they take into consideration the errors both at inputs and outputs. Simulations and experiment are carried to compare three methods, namely, ordinary least-squares method, unconstrained total least-squares method, and constrained total least-squares method. It is found that the last method gives the most accurate results.