Wavelet based buildings segmentation in airborne laser scanning data set

In the recent years three-dimensional buildings modelling based on an raw airborne laser scanning point clouds, became an important issue. A significant step towards 3D modelling is buildings segmentation in laser scanning data. For this purpose an algorithm, based on the multi-resolution analysis in wavelet domain, is proposed in the paper. The proposed method concentrates only on buildings, which have to be segmented. All other objects and terrain surface have to be removed. The algorithm works on gridded data. The wavelet-based segmentation proceeds in the following main steps: wavelet decomposition up to appropriately chosen level, thresholding on the chosen and adjacent levels, removal of all coefficients in the so-called influence pyramid and wavelet reconstruction. If buildings on several scaling spaces have to be segmented, the procedure should be applied iteratively. The wavelet approach makes the procedure very fast. However, the limitation of the proposed procedure is its scale-based distinction between objects to be segmented and the rest.