Patent ID: 8885883

Claim:
A method for processing X, Y, Z coordinates (XYZ)point cloud of a scene acquired by a Geiger-mode avalanche photodiode (GmAPD) LADAR, comprising the steps of: performing on a computing device a three-dimensional statistical differencing on the XYZ point cloud obtained from the GmAPD LADAR to produce a statistical differencing (SD) point cloud; and displaying an image of the SD point cloud; wherein the step of performing a three dimensional statistical differencing on the XYZ point cloud comprises performing Wallis statistical differencing in three dimensions to produce a Wallis dimensional statistical differencing (WSD) point cloud and wherein the step of displaying an image of the SD point cloud comprises displaying an image of the WSD point cloud and wherein the Wallis statistical differencing in three dimensions occurs according to the following algorithm: G ⁡ ( j , k , l ) = [ F ⁡ ( j , k , l ) - M ⁡ ( j , k , l ) ] , [ A + S d A + S ⁡ ( j , k , l ) - S d ] + [ r + M d + ( 1 - r ) + M ⁡ ( j , k , l ) ] where M(j,k,l) is the estimated local mean over a WxWxW neighborhood, where W=2w+1 M ⁡ ( j , k , l ) = 1 W 3 ⁢ ∑ m + j - w j + w ⁢ ∑ m + k - w k + w ⁢ ∑ m + l - w l + w ⁢ F ⁡ ( m , n , p ) and S(j,k,l) is the estimated local standard deviation over that same neighborhood S ⁡ ( j , k , l ) = 1 W 3 ⁢ ∑ m + j - w j + w ⁢ ∑ m + k - w k + w ⁢ ∑ m + l - w l + w ⁢ [ F ⁡ ( m , n , p ) - M ⁢ { m , n , p ) ] 2 M d and S d are desired and mean and standard deviation factors, A is a gain factor, and r controls the edge to background ratio.