Patent ID: 11954907
Assignee: X DEVELOPMENT LLC
Field: Computer technology (Electrical engineering)
Classification: CPC G  H  Y | IPC G  H

Claim 18:
19. A system comprising one or more computers and one or more storage devices on which are stored instructions that are operable, when executed by the one or more computers, to cause the one or more computers to perform operations comprising:
obtaining a set of surface elements (surfels), wherein each surfel of the set of surfels represents a portion of a surface of an object in a geographic region and comprises surfel attributes including:
a three-dimensional coordinate location of the surfel;
a normal vector defining an orientation of the surface of the object at the three-dimensional coordinate location; and
a shape defined by two or more axes;

selecting, from the set of surfels, one or more surfels that each satisfies criteria for representing a portion of a surface of an electric grid wire, including determining, for each of the selected one or more surfels, that:
a first axis of the two or more axes defining the shape of the surfel is greater than a second axis of the two or more axes; and
an angle between the first axis and the ground surface is less than a threshold angle;

generating a representation of the electric grid wire from the selected one or more surfels; and
adding the representation of the electric grid wire to a virtual model of an electric grid.