16.40. n_align

This tool can be used to jointly align a set of two or more point clouds, hence it extends the functionality of pc_align (Section 16.49). It implements the ICP flavor from [TBC10], more exactly, the MATLAB algorithm at

https://searchcode.com/file/13619767/Code/matlab/GlobalProcrustesICP/globalProcrustes.m

It is hoped that joint alignment will give less biased results than pairwise alignment for the clouds.

Usage:

n_align <cloud files> -o <output prefix>

This tool supports the same types of data on input and output as pc_align.

Even for two clouds this algorithm is not the same as the ones that are part of pc_align. This algorithm is expected to be more robust to outliers than the regular ICP in pc_align since it uses a cross-check. Yet, it may not handle a large translation difference between the clouds as well. In that case, given a set of clouds, one can first use pc_align to align all other clouds to the first one, then invoke this algorithm for joint alignment while passing the obtained alignment transforms as an argument to this tool, to be used as initial guesses. The option to use for this, as shown below for simplicity for three clouds, is:

--initial-transforms 'identity.txt run_12/run-transform.txt run_13/run-transform.txt'

where the file identity.txt contains the 4 × 4 identity matrix (the transform from the first cloud to itself), and run_12/run is the output prefix for pc_align when invoked on the first and second clouds, etc. The final transforms output by this tool will incorporate the initial guesses.

This tool should be less sensitive than pc_align to the order of the clouds since any two of them are compared against each other. The number of iterations and number of input points used will dramatically affect its performance, and likely the accuracy. Cropping all clouds to the same region is likely to to improve both run-time and the results.

Command-line options for n_align:

--num-iterations <arg (default: 100)>

Maximum number of iterations.

--max-num-points <arg (default: 1000000)>

Maximum number of (randomly picked) points from each cloud to use.

--csv-format <string>

Specify the format of input CSV files as a list of entries column_index:column_type (indices start from 1). Examples: 1:x 2:y 3:z (a Cartesian coordinate system with origin at planet center is assumed, with the units being in meters), 5:lon 6:lat 7:radius_m (longitude and latitude are in degrees, the radius is measured in meters from planet center), 3:lat 2:lon 1:height_above_datum, 1:easting 2:northing 3:height_above_datum (need to set --csv-proj4; the height above datum is in meters). Can also use radius_km for column_type, when it is again measured from planet center.

--csv-proj4 <proj string>

The PROJ.4 string to use to interpret the entries in input CSV files.

--datum <string>

Use this datum for CSV files instead of auto-detecting it. Options:

  • WGS_1984

  • D_MOON (1,737,400 meters)

  • D_MARS (3,396,190 meters)

  • MOLA (3,396,000 meters)

  • NAD83

  • WGS72

  • NAD27

  • Earth (alias for WGS_1984)

  • Mars (alias for D_MARS)

  • Moon (alias for D_MOON)

--semi-major-axis <arg (default: 0)>

Explicitly set the datum semi-major axis in meters.

--semi-minor-axis <arg (default: 0)>

Explicitly set the datum semi-minor axis in meters.

-o, --output-prefix <arg>

Specify the output prefix. The computed alignment transforms and, if desired, the transformed clouds, will be saved to names starting with this prefix.

--save-transformed-clouds

Apply the obtained alignment transforms to the input clouds and save them.

--initial-transforms-prefix <arg>

The prefix of the transforms to be used as initial guesses. The naming convention is the same as for the transforms written on output.

--initial-transforms <arg>

Specify the initial transforms as a list of files separated by spaces and in quotes, that is, as 'trans1.txt ... trans_n.txt'.

--relative-error-tolerance <tolerance (default: 1e-10)>

Stop when the change in the error divided by the error itself is less than this.

--align-to-first-cloud

Align the other clouds to the first one, rather than to their common centroid.

--verbose

Print the alignment error after each iteration.

--threads <integer (default: 0)>

Select the number of threads to use for each process. If 0, use the value in ~/.vwrc.

--cache-size-mb <integer (default = 1024)>

Set the system cache size, in MB.

--tile-size <integer (default: 256 256)>

Image tile size used for multi-threaded processing.

--no-bigtiff

Tell GDAL to not create bigtiffs.

--tif-compress <None|LZW|Deflate|Packbits (default: LZW)>

TIFF compression method.

-v, --version

Display the version of software.

-h, --help

Display this help message.