Weighted Iterative CD-Spline for Mitigating Occlusion Effects on Building Boundary Regularization Using Airborne LiDAR Data

Sensors (Basel). 2022 Aug 26;22(17):6440. doi: 10.3390/s22176440.

Abstract

Building occlusions usually decreases the accuracy of boundary regularization. Thus, it is essential that modeling methods address this problem, aiming to minimize its effects. In this context, we propose a weighted iterative changeable degree spline (WICDS) approach. The idea is to use a weight function for initial building boundary points, assigning a lower weight to the points in the occlusion region. As a contribution, the proposed method allows the minimization of errors caused by the occlusions, resulting in a more accurate contour modeling. The conducted experiments are performed using both simulated and real data. In general, the results indicate the potential of the WICDS approach to model a building boundary with occlusions, including curved boundary segments. In terms of Fscore and PoLiS, the proposed approach presents values around 99% and 0.19 m, respectively. Compared with the previous iterative changeable degree spline (ICDS), the WICDS resulted in an improvement of around 6.5% for completeness, 4% for Fscore, and 0.24 m for the PoLiS metric.

Keywords: LiDAR; boundary modeling; remote sensing; urban application; vegetation occlusion.