Adaptive Laser Range Scanning

We present an approach to laser range scanning in which quality metrics are used to automatically reduce the number of measurements acquired from a scanner viewpoint. As part of this approach we present improved versions of the orientation, and reflectivity quality metrics, as well as introduce three quality metrics: spot size, re solvability, and planarity. These quality metrics are used to divide the total field of view from a scanner viewpoint into regions. A subset of these regions is then automatically identified as having a significant likelihood of producing useful measurements to augment the initial range image using quality metrics. The composite range image is then automatically generated from the initial scan and series of targeted subscans.