Obtaining optimal routes from point cloud surveys

Abstract

Within the “City without barriers, Tool for evaluation and visualization of accessibility to public space, based on TLS, GIS and GPS Technologies” project, headed by Professor Josep Roca Caldera, funded in the framework of the RecerCaixa 2013 Call, in the theme The house and the city adapted to the disabled people, there is a need to develop methodologies to study accessibility in urban settings.

Given the complexity of the urban environments and the variants that can be considered from the accessibility (Del Moral, 2010), it is proposed a methodology to carry out systematic analyzes to evaluate the accessibility of urban environments and generate analysis of specific routes, starting from a massive documentation, based on architectural surveys with Terrestrial Laser Scanner Technology TLS.

These TLS surveys of unorganized point clouds are classified and structured, using the methodology proposed in this publication, in relation to the information needed for an accessibility analysis. In this process different types of analysis are used such as the RANSAC algorithm (Schnabel et al., 2007) among others.

Based on this structured information, ráster layers are generated, with accessibility criteria, allowing the analysis of multi-criteria routes, which are applied to two specific urban case studies, with differentiated characteristics.

As a conclusion of these case studies, a clear methodology is proposed, that starts from the classification of points cloud, the generation of specific ráster layers, with specific parameters, to obtain the analysis of accessible routes, depending on the characteristics of accessibility.