Patent Document ID: 20140204082
Application ID: 13745893
Patent Status: 0

Claim One:
1. A system for segmenting sensor data, the system comprising: at least one sensor configured to acquire at least one frame of data from an environment containing the at least one sensor, wherein the at least one frame provides a three-dimensional description of a portion of the environment; a processing unit configured to receive the at least one frame from the at least one sensor, wherein the processing unit is configured to segment the at least one frame by: computing a residual map that is based on the distance between data points in the at least one frame and at least one polynomial surface fitted to at least one surface represented by the data in the at least one frame; identifying a plurality of minima in the residual map, wherein each minimum in the plurality of minima is associated with a different region in a plurality of regions; flooding the residual map at the plurality of minima; identifying boundaries for the plurality of regions, wherein the boundaries are at the locations where the flooding in adjacent regions first contact one another as the residual map is flooded; and dividing the residual map into a plurality of segments based on the identified boundaries.