Worm Selector: Volume Selection in a 3D Point Cloud Through Adaptive Modelling

Abstract

3D point clouds are more and more widely used, especially because of the proliferation of manual and cheap 3D scanners and 3D printers. Due to the large size of the 3D point clouds, selecting part of them is very often required. Existing interaction techniques include ray/cone casting and predefined or free-form selection volume. In order to cope with the traditional trade-off between accuracy, ease of use and flexibility of these different forms of selection techniques in a 3D point cloud, we present the Worm Selector. It allows to select complex shapes while remaining simple to use and accurate. Using the Worm Selector relies on three principles: 1) points are selected by progressively constructing a cylinder-like shape (the adaptative worm) through the sequential definition of several sections; 2) a section is defined as a set of two contours linked together with straight lines; 3) each contour is a freely drawn closed shape. A user study reveals that the Worm Selector is significantly faster than a classical selection mechanism based on predefined volumes such as spheres or cuboids, while maintaining a comparable level of precision and recall.