Rapid three-dimensional surface mesh segmentation based on region dilation

Three-dimensional laser scanned surface segmentation is an important step for computer-aided broken objection patching. Current methods still have high time consuming problem in practical applications. In order to solve this problem, we propose the rapid three-dimensional (3-D) surface segmentation based on region dilation. The procedure includes three steps of point cloud meshing, candidate region generating, and insignificant region eliminating. Some experiments are implemented on the 3-D surface with a Roland LPX-250 3-D laser scanner to testify the feasibility and performance of the proposed algorithm compared with other methods. (C) 2012 Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE). [DOI:10.1117/1.OE.51.5.050502]