Cycle graph analysis for 3D roof structure modelling: Concepts and performance

The paper presents a cycle graph analysis approach to the automatic reconstruction of 3D roof models from airborne laser scanner data. The nature of convergences of topological relations of plane adjacencies, allowing for the reconstruction of roof corner geometries with preserved topology, can be derived from cycles in roof topology graphs. The topology between roof adjacencies is defined in terms of ridge-lines and step-edges. In the proposed method, the input point cloud is first segmented and roof topology is derived while extracting roof planes from identified non-terrain segments. Orientation and placement regularities are applied on weakly defined edges using a piecewise regularization approach prior to the reconstruction, which assists in preserving symmetries in building geometry. Roof corners are geometrically modelled using the shortest closed cycles and the outermost cycle derived from roof topology graph in which external target graphs are no longer required. Based on test results, we show that the proposed approach can handle complexities with nearly 90% of the detected roof faces reconstructed correctly. The approach allows complex height jumps and various types of building roofs to be firmly reconstructed without prior knowledge of primitive building types.