Automatic Registration of Optical Images with Airborne LiDAR Point Cloud in Urban Scenes Based on Line-Point Similarity Invariant and Extended Collinearity Equations

This paper proposes a novel method to achieve the automatic registration of optical images and Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) points in urban areas. The whole procedure, which adopts a coarse-to-precise registration strategy, can be summarized as follows: Coarse registration is performed through a conventional point-feature-based method. The points needed can be extracted from both datasets through a matured point extractor, such as the Forster operator, followed by the extraction of straight lines. Considering that lines are mainly from building roof edges in urban scenes, and being aware of their inaccuracy when extracted from an irregularly spaced point cloud, an “infinitesimal feature analysis method” fully utilizing LiDAR scanning characteristics is proposed to refine edge lines. Points which are matched between the image and LiDAR data are then applied as guidance to search for matched lines via the line-point similarity invariant. Finally, a transformation function based on extended collinearity equations is applied to achieve precise registration. The experimental results show that the proposed method outperforms the conventional ones in terms of the registration accuracy and automation level.