Patent ID: 7933749

Claim:
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: (b1) identifying an outermost point on each surface edge of the second point cloud by analyzing coordinates values of the points in the second point cloud; (b2) creating a cubical figure that can confine the second point cloud according to the outmost points; (b3) deriving a length, a width and a height of the cubical figure; (b4) dividing the cubical figure into the plurality of cubical grids according to the length, the width, and the height of the cubical figure and an axes interval step preconfigured by a user; and (b5) configuring serial numbers for the cubical grids to identify the cubical grids; (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.