Error Analysis of Terrestrial Laser Scanning Data by Means of Spherical Statistics and 3D Graphs.docVIP

Sensors 2010, 10, 10128-10145; doi:10.3390/s101110128 OPEN ACCESS sensors ISSN 1424-8220 /journal/sensors Article Error Analysis of Terrestrial Laser Scanning Data by Means of Spherical Statistics and 3D Graphs Aurora Cuartero 1,*, Julia Armesto 2, Pablo G. Rodríguez 1 and Pedro Arias 2 1 Polytechnic School, University of Extremadura, 10071 Cáceres, Spain; E-Mail: pablogr@unex.es (P.G.-R.) 2 Mining Engineering School, University of Vigo, 36310 Vigo, Spain; E-Mails: julia@uvigo.es (J.A.); parias@uvigo.es (P.A.) * Author to whom correspondence should be addressed; E-Mail: acuartero@unex.es; Tel.: +34-927257195; Fax: +34-927257324. Received: 26 August 2010; in revised form: 18 October 2010 / Accepted: 5 November 2010 / Published: 10 November 2010 Abstract: This paper presents a complete analysis of the positional errors of terrestrial laser scanning (TLS) data based on spherical statistics and 3D graphs. Spherical statistics are preferred because of the 3D vectorial nature of the spatial error. Error vectors have three metric elements (one module and two angles) that were analyzed by spherical statistics. A study case has been presented and discussed in detail. Errors were calculating using 53 check points (CP) and CP coordinates were measured by a digitizer with submillimetre accuracy. The positional accuracy was analyzed by both the conventional method (modular errors analysis) and the proposed method (angular errors analysis) by 3D graphics and numerical spherical statistics. Two packages in R programming language were performed to obtain graphics automatically. The results indicated that the proposed method is advantageous as it offers a more complete analysis of the positional accuracy, such as angular error component, uniformity of the vector distribution, error isotropy, and error, in addition the modular error component by linear statistics. Keywords: accuracy; terrestrial lase