Experiment design of the terrestrial laser scanning of elongated objects

Abstract

In high-demanding engineering applications, the l atest performance improvements of the terrestrial lasers scanning (TLS) system and price decreasing trend shows the significant potential of this technology. Beside the fact that some scanners have the scanning frequency of over 1.000.000 Hz, in th e engineering applications the accuracy of this surve y method plays the key role. Achievement of the satisfactory accuracy of the object modelling using TLS has to be done by experiment designing. This implies the optimization process of the relevant me asurements parameters and of the methodology of measurement processing through analysis of the diff erent sources of measurement errors, instrumental precision and performance of the specific TLS, spat ial configuration of the object and analysis of the models of registration and georeferencing errors. The prop osed methodology of the TLS experiment design is related to the scanning of elongated objects (tunnels, corr idors, pipelines, underground passages etc), which generally represent unfavourable cases in providing geodetic measurements of sufficient accuracy and reliability.