Multi-Source Point Cloud Semantic Segmentation Using Neural Network

Abstract

Abstract. The purpose of this study is to enhance point cloud semantic segmentation by using point clouds from multiple distinct technologies on the same capture location and to determine whether employing various technologies throughout the acquisition process yields better performance during classification. The different point clouds were captured in the same geographical location and have previously been aligned and classified by professionals of the field. Three locations have been scanned with airborne lidar, terrestrial lidar and photogrammetry using UAV or helicopter. The use of various sources of capture on the same location opens the door to creating new features, such as the proportion of each source involved in the semantic segmentation of point clouds. This plurality of sources also enables us to spread various features, such as RGB colors, that have been propagated to other sources via the neighborhood. The initial results lean towards capture using different technologies as the overall accuracy increase by two to four points and the mean Matthews correlation coefficient increase by four to seven points. The main drawbacks are the cost of some technologies, as well as the processing time, which is greater than with a single technology.