Analysis of scaling factor in terrestrial laser scanning pre-processing procedure / Nurathirah Mat Zain

Similar to other instruments in Geomatics field, terrestrial laser scanner has its
own coordinate system. The scanner measures start from local coordinate system for
each terrestrial laser scanner station, then, perform registration process to convert
into one global coordinate system. In terrestrial laser scanner the scale factor is
neglected by most researchers because it is shown to be irrelevant in laser scanner
pre-processing procedure. However, for total station and global positioning system
that have similar concept with terrestrial laser scaner, applied scale factor in
coordinate transformation calculation. For this reason, this study focused on
investigation of the effect of scaling factor in terrestrial laser scanner- pre-processing
procedure. Investigations began by develop a datum transformation program.
Australis software was used as a benchmarking for developed datum transformation
program and the results were evaluated by using statistical testing. The develop
program was applied for three experiment with three different configurations network
(i) reduction of scan stations, (ii) reduction of surfaces, and (iii) reduction of target
points. Statistical analysis was executed and results show that the scaling factor in
laser scanner pre-processing procedure was not significant at 95% confidence
interval. It is statistically verified that scaling factor is shown to be irrelevant in laser
scanner coordinate transformation procedure.