Patent ID: 7933749
Filing Date: 2011-04-26
Classification: G06K,G06T

Abstract:
1. A computer-enabled method for computing minimum distances between two point clouds, the method being performed by execution of computer readable program code by at least one processor of at least one computer system, the method comprising steps of: (a) acquiring a first point cloud and a second point cloud using the at least one processor; (b) establishing a topological structure for the second point cloud to make points of the second point cloud confined in a plurality of related cubical grids using the at least one processor, comprising: (c) selecting a point, which has not been selected, from the first point cloud using the at least one processor; (d) searching one or more cubical grids from the related cubical grids according to the topological structure, and computing a distance between the selected point and each of points which belong to the second point cloud and in the searched cubical grids to obtain a closest point from the second point cloud, which has a shortest distance to the selected point, wherein the shortest distance is one of the minimum distances between the two point cloud using the at least one processor; (e) repeating steps from (c) to (d) until all the points in the first point cloud have been selected.