Displacement field reconstruction in landslide physical modeling by using a terrain laser scanner – Part 1: Methodology, error analysis and validation

Abstract

Laser scanning technology has been widely used in landslide aspects. However, the existing deformation analysis based on terrain laser scanners can only provide limited information, which is insufficient for understanding landslide kinematics and failure mechanisms. To overcome this limitation, this paper proposes an automated method for processing point clouds collected in landslide physical modeling. This method allows the acquisition of quantitative three-dimensional (3D) deformation field information. The results show the organized and spatially related point cloud segmentation in terms of spherical targets. The segmented point clouds can be fitted to determine the locations of all preset targets and their corresponding location changes. The proposed method has been validated based on theoretical analysis and numerical and physical tests, which indicates that it can batch-process massive data sets with high computational efficiency and good noise resistance. Compared to existing methods, this method shows a significant potential for understanding landslide kinematics and failure mechanisms and advancing the application of 3D laser scanning in geotechnical modeling.