A clustering-based simplification of massive automobile-bodies point cloud for lightweight design. (10th November 2022)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Zhou, Yu; Song, Yue; Zhang, Qi; Wang, Yan; Du, Fa-rong; Ding, Shui-ting
• Is Part Of: International journal of vehicle design. Volume 88:Number 2/4(2022)
• Page Start: 177
• Page End: 201
• Publication Date: 2022-11-10
• Subjects: point cloud -- simplification -- laser scanning -- lightweight design -- automobile body -- hierarchical clustering -- reverse engineering -- non-uniform subdivision -- boundary-points preservation -- curvature awareness; Motor vehicles -- Design and construction -- Periodicals; 629.231
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0143-3369

Abstract

Adaptive simplification for massive and large-scale automobile-bodies point cloud obtained by 3D laser-scanning has been proven to be an effective technology to conduct lightweight design. This paper introduces a point-based algorithm to simplify laser-scanning point cloud without any support of fitted surface. The intrinsic characteristic of laser-scanning data is investigated to produce a topological connectivity for adjacent points in scanlines. We explore an automatic normal-vector estimation framework through the relationship between normal-vector and its adjacent geometric elements. To retain more points in high-curvature areas and fewer points in planar regions efficiently, the local normal-vector variance is adopted to determine subdivision-decision condition. The boundary points are detected and then preserved before non-uniform subdivision. A relevant simplification system based on our algorithm is developed. Many simplification cases are implemented to validate the effectiveness of our method and demonstrate the feasibility for automobile-bodies point cloud. The comparison with other point-based methods is also performed to illustrate the superiority of our method.