Precise Vehicle Topology and Road Surface Modeling Derived from Airborne LiDAR Data

Charles K. Toth, Dorota A.Grejner-Brzezinska and Shahram Moafipoor

Abstract:	This paper represents the continuation of research presented earlier (Grejner-Brzezinska and Toth, 2002 and 2003a-b; Toth et al, 2003 a-b) referred to a theoretical and practical study on the feasibility of using LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) data and airborne imagery collected simultaneously over the transportation corridors for obtaining traffic flow estimates, such as (1) vehicle count estimates based on extracting vehicles from dense LiDAR point cloud and/or imagery, (2) classification of extracted vehicles into main categories, (3) velocity estimates based on modeling the vehicle categories and using sensor navigation data, and (4) intersection movement patterns. In this paper, we present the updated algorithms and methodology of extracting the vehicle information together with the road surface modeling with precisely georeferenced (GPS/INS) LiDAR data, augmented by LiDAR intensity information. We demonstrate that intelligent algorithms that we developed are capable of fast and robust identification of the shapes (especially the vertical profiles of the vehicles), proving LiDAR's ability to preserve the vehicle geometry better, as compared to conventional image projection (again, primarily the vertical profile), where it can be significantly distorted. We prove that if LIDAR data of sufficient spatial density are available, vehicle extraction and their coarse classification can be efficiently performed in parallel to the efficient and automated road surface extraction and modeling.
Published in:	Proceedings of the 60th Annual Meeting of The Institute of Navigation (2004) June 7 - 9, 2004 Dayton Marriott Hotel Dayton, OH
Pages:	401 - 408
Cite this article:	Toth, Charles K., A.Grejner-Brzezinska, Dorota, Moafipoor, Shahram, "Precise Vehicle Topology and Road Surface Modeling Derived from Airborne LiDAR Data," Proceedings of the 60th Annual Meeting of The Institute of Navigation (2004), Dayton, OH, June 2004, pp. 401-408.
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