Initial Registration for Point Clouds Based on Linear Features

Terrestrial 3D laser scanning is a new remote sensing technology which can collect a huge number of 3D coordinates of points about objects, called point clouds, in one survey station. Because the coordinates system in each station is described in respective local coordinate system -- instrumental-centered coordinate system, which changes from station to station, it is an necessary step to make registration of adjacent point clouds so as to transform them into one common coordinate frame. In this paper, linear features are used as elements to complete initial registration of point clouds. Transformation formulas are derived, and simulation data experiment and real data experiment are done. The results show it is a feasible method.