Patent ID: 8660365

Claim:
A method for processing extracted plane features, the method comprising: estimating an area of each plane of a plurality of planes extracted from data collected by an imaging sensor; generating a list of detected planes that includes the area of each plane of the plurality of planes; filtering the list of detected planes to produce a list of candidates for merger, where filtering the list of detected planes discards any plane not satisfying an actual points received criteria; applying a primary merge algorithm to the list of candidates for merger, wherein the primary merge algorithm iteratively produces a list of merged planes by testing hypothetical merged planes against a merging criteria, wherein the hypothetical merged planes each comprise a first plane from the list of merged planes and a second plane from the list of candidates for merger, wherein the merging criteria includes a normal vector criterion and a relative thickness criterion; wherein the normal vector criterion is satisfied for a first hypothetical merged plane when angles formed between a normal vector of the hypothetical merged plane and the normal vectors of the first plane and the second plane do not exceed a maximum degree criteria; wherein the relative thickness criterion is satisfied when a calculated thickness for the hypothetical merged plane is no greater than a predetermine thickness value that is determined from a function of the thickness of the first plane and the thickness of the second plane; and outputting a final list of planes based on the output of the primary merge algorithm.