Comprehensive Airborne Laser Scanning (ALS) Simulation

The 3D topographic data generated by airborne laser scanning (ALS) has numerous applications such as urban planning, transportation planning, flood modeling and mapping. Various types of LiDAR (light detection and ranging) datasets are needed for testing and development of algorithms for these applications. Such datasets are not readily available as the LiDAR data capturing process is complex, time-consuming and expensive. Simulated ALS data can be a low-cost alternative to the expensive LiDAR datasets. This paper presents the development of a simulator (called Limulator 4.0) for ALS data. Limulator includes four components, namely 3D model component, camera component, laser component and LiDAR data generation. The first component provides a user, the facility to input user-defined 3D models of various objects. The laser component mathematically models the scanner movement and flight trajectory to generate simulated ALS parameters. The camera component takes user-defined parameters to generate images captured by a virtual camera. The effects of external and internal forces on flight movement and various errors are also modeled mathematically. Software for this simulation is developed in C + + , and its user-friendly GUI is developed using QT Creator 5.6. Limulator can serve as the ideal testbed for developing, testing and validation of various algorithms.