A system for reconstruction from point clouds in 3D: Simplification and mesh representation

In this paper we present a complete system for acquisition of fused (textured) point clouds in 3D, from a Laser Range Finder (LRF) and a CCD camera. Furthermore, we describe an approach to build and process the resulting models, including their pre-processing and mesh simplification. This approach allows manipulating the resulting data structure into consistent geometric representations, which can be further adapted based on user requirements. The advantage of our system is that of low computational cost, ease of use and accuracy in the representation of the environment, even without prior data smoothing.