Knowledge guided object detection and identification in 3D Point Clouds

Modern instruments like laser scanner and 3D cameras or image based techniques like structure from motion produce huge point clouds as base for further object analysis. This has considerably changed the way of data compilation away from selective manually guided processes towards automatic and computer supported strategies. However it's still a long way to achieve the quality and robustness of manual processes as data sets are mostly very complex. Looking at existing strategies 3D data processing for object detections and reconstruction rely heavily on either data driven or model driven approaches. These approaches come with their limitation on depending highly on the nature of data and inability to handle any deviation. Furthermore, the lack of capabilities to integrate other data or information in between the processing steps further exposes their limitations. This restricts the approaches to be executed with strict predefined strategy and does not allow deviations when and if new unexpected situations arise. We propose a solution that induces intelligence in the processing activities through the usage of semantics. The solution binds the objects along with other related knowledge domains to the numerical processing to facilitate the detection of geometries and then uses experts' inference rules to annotate them. The solution was tested within the prototypical application of the research project "Wissensbasierte Detektion von Objekten in Punktwolken fur Anwendungen im Ingenieurbereich (WiDOP)". The flexibility of the solution is demonstrated through two entirely different USE Case scenarios: Deutsche Bahn (German Railway System) for the outdoor scenarios and Fraport (Frankfort Airport) for the indoor scenarios. Apart from the difference in their environments, they provide different conditions, which the solution needs to consider. While locations of the objects in Fraport were previously known, that of DB were not known at the beginning.