REALISTIC 3D RECONSTRUCTION – COMBINING LASERSCAN DATA WITH RGB COLOR INFORMATION

Laserscanners are used more and more as surveying instruments for various applications. With the advance of high precision systems, capable of working in most real world environments under a variety of conditions, numerous applications have opened up. The developed IMAGER 5003 is a state-of-the-art, high precision, high speed laser scanner that provides accurate measurements. In order to monitor scenes by means of range and reflectance images, the IMAGER 5003 is based on a phase-shift measurement principle. In combination with a newly developed scanning system, the system provides a wide field of view of 360° (horizontal) x 310° (vertical) with an image resolution of up to 20000 x 20000 pixels within one single image. Scanning time for a full scan depends on the section to be scanned and the number of measured points – for a standard image 360° x 310°, 10000 x 10000 pixels less than minutes. The IMAGER 5003 measures both, range and reflectance images at the same time. The range image generates geometric dimensions of the environmental scenes whereas the reflectance image generates a photographic like impression of the scanned environment which is used for feature extraction, visual inspection, object segmentation, surface classification and documentation purposes. To realise surveying tasks in architectural, archaeological and cultural landscapes conservation, a high resolution line scan camera is used: The camera was developed by the German Aerospace (DLR) and enables the mapping of 2D RGB color information onto the 3D point cloud of the scanner unit in a simple manner. This paper introduces into the main features of the Z+F IMAGER 5003 as well as of the DLR line scan camera and explains the way, how scanner data and RGB image data are combined. It shows results from cultural landscape conservation projects as well as from industrial applications. Finally it gives an outlook to further work in the laser scanning development area.