Abstract
In this paper, we describe the automatic extraction of centerlines of railroads. Mobile Laser Scanning systems are able to capture the 3D environment of the rail tracks with a high level of detail. Our approach first detects laser points that were reflected by the rail tracks, by making use of local properties such as parallelism and height in relation to neighboring objects. In the modeling stage, we present two approaches to determine the centerline location. The first approach generates center points in a data-driven manner by projecting rail track points to the parallel track, and taking the midpoint as initial center point. Next, a piecewise linear function is fitted through the center points to generate center points at a regular interval. The second approach models the rail track by fitting piecewise 3D track models to the rail track points. The model consists of a pair of two parallel rail tracks. The fitted pieces are smoothened by a Fourier series interpolation function. After that the centerline is implicitly determined by the geometric center of the pair of tracks. Reference data has been used to analyze the quality of our results, confirming that the position of the centerlines can be determined with an accuracy of 2–3 cm.
Highlights
The centerline of a rail track is an important element at various stages in the object life of the rail track.In railroad designs, the centerline is used to determine features such as maximum curvature and impact on the environment
mobile laser scanning (MLS) data were acquired in two study areas
The range accuracy is in the order of 1–3 mm, whereas the positional accuracy of the system as a whole is in the order of 1 cm
Summary
The centerline of a rail track is an important element at various stages in the object life of the rail track. The centerline is used to determine features such as maximum curvature and impact on the environment. Required clearances near the railroad are based on the location of the centerline. Rail track center lines are an important data input for track alignment analysis. Rail tracks tend to shift, thereby degrading the optimal rail path. If the current rail geometry is known, the difference between the optimal path and the actual situation can be computed. Huge machines, such as ballast tempers are used to shift and tilt the rail back into the optimal shape
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