IDL-Based Program Development of Terrestrial Laser Scanning Data Processing, Modeling and Clustering

Terrestrial laser scanner could acquire a large amount of data including point cloud data, intensity value and high-resolution images. Specialized free processing program was needed by our research. A program based on Interactive Data Language (IDL) has been developed for processing, modeling and clustering of terrestrial laser scanning data. The program including an easy-to-use graphical user interface (GUI) is a set of functions written in IDL. The most common application of the program is processing and modeling of the terrestrial laser scanning data. The GUI helps the user easily change many parameters and export statistical information of data analysis. In the program, point cloud data could be displayed in point, line and surface styles. And the model constructing from the point cloud data could be rotated and zoomed in the GUI by the controlling of users. The program could perform the principle component analysis (PCA) of the dataset and give the clustering result using PCA method. This paper discusses the main features of the program and its capabilities are demonstrated by means of illustrative examples. The development of this program will go on, and the functions will be improved further.