A method that quantifies the surface flatness of 3D point cloud data in which a test statistic is proposed to indicate the surface flatness based on the threshold of the allowed bump level, the confidence level of test statistics and data density. The method comprises steps of converting the LIDAR measured points to coordinates along the axes using the principal component analysis (PCA) technique; calculating a Z.sub.α value based on the coordinates and predetermined bump tolerance: comparing the Z.sub.α value with a Z score of a test statistic to perform a null hypothesis; and rejecting the null hypothesis when the Z.sub.α value is greater than the Z score.

A method that quantifies the surface flatness of 3D point cloud data in which a test statistic is proposed to indicate the surface flatness based on the threshold of the allowed bump level, the confidence level of test statistics and data density. The method comprises steps of converting the LIDAR measured points to coordinates along the axes using the principal component analysis (PCA) technique; calculating a Z.sub.α value based on the coordinates and predetermined bump tolerance: comparing the Z.sub.α value with a Z score of a test statistic to perform a null hypothesis; and rejecting the null hypothesis when the Z.sub.α value is greater than the Z score.

Products and processes for measuring crop and pasture surface profile which may be used to measure the average surface profile of crop and pasture foliage around stationary measurement devices.

Method for determining, with geodesic precision, the position of a target point on a target object by using a geodesic measuring device, said method comprising a sighting device which comprises at least one objective unit that defines an optical line of sight, an electronic distance measuring unit, and a thermal imaging camera for recording a thermal image in the direction of the optical line of sight. An angle measuring function is provided for recording the line of sight alignment, and a control unit is provided for controlling the angle measuring function, the thermal imaging camera. In a thermal imaging mode when a measurement procedure is triggered, position data of the sighted target point which are determined in said measurement procedure are linked to temperature information which is read out from the thermal image for the target point at which the line of sight is aimed.

Method for determining, with geodesic precision, the position of a target point on a target object by using a geodesic measuring device, said method comprising a sighting device which comprises at least one objective unit that defines an optical line of sight, an electronic distance measuring unit, and a thermal imaging camera for recording a thermal image in the direction of the optical line of sight. An angle measuring function is provided for recording the line of sight alignment, and a control unit is provided for controlling the angle measuring function, the thermal imaging camera. In a thermal imaging mode when a measurement procedure is triggered, position data of the sighted target point which are determined in said measurement procedure are linked to temperature information which is read out from the thermal image for the target point at which the line of sight is aimed.

In a method of operating a dimensioning system with a plurality of laser scanners, a processor controls the operations of the scanners and processes the scanner signals, and further with memory for storing data delivered by the processor, the data acquired by the dimensioning system in its regular mode of operation are used to construct a three-dimensional model of surface points of the object including spatial coordinates and image intensity for each surface point. The three-dimensional model is stored in the memory. Based on the three-dimensional model, two-dimensional images from any desired viewing angle that was exposed to the scanner rays can be produced on demand to document the appearance of the object at the time the scan was taken.

A method of estimating a location of a user terminal is provided. It is based on a difference between a true north and a magnetic north that may estimate a location of a user terminal on a magnetic field map based on a difference between a true north and a magnetic north corresponding to each location of the magnetic field map, and the user terminal thereof.

In order to create an accurate map with a simple operation, the map creation system includes: a relative position acquisition means to measure distances and directions from a sensor to points on a surface of an infrastructure or an object and to create point cloud data in a relative space with the sensor at the center thereof; a sensor position acquisition means to measure the position and the attitude of the sensor and to create sensor position data; an absolute position calculation means to calculate position information of the point cloud in the absolute space on the basis of the point cloud data in the relative space and the sensor position data; a direction-vector calculation means to obtain a direction vector from the sensor to each point of the point cloud in the absolute space on the basis of the point cloud data in the relative space and the sensor position data; an area detection means to extract points composing a plane area on the basis of the position information and the direction vectors of the point cloud in the absolute space and to obtain the area outline on the basis of the distribution of the extracted points; and a drawing means to draw a picture representing the detected area outline with a line.

The present invention defines a method of determining a vertical profile signal of a rail surface that includes, obtaining a vertical acceleration signal acc.sub.1, by measuring vertical acceleration of a bogie of a rail vehicle that runs on the rail surface; processing the vertical acceleration signal to obtain a vertical velocity signal; determining the vertical profile signal of the rail surface, by using the vertical acceleration signal and the vertical velocity signal as inputs to a simulation model of the bogie, the model having an unsprung mass connected to a sprung mass, the vertical acceleration signal acc.sub.1 represents the vertical acceleration of the unsprung mass; and measuring a linear velocity signal of the rail vehicle, the linear velocity signal is used in the step of determining to convert the vertical profile signal from the time domain to the distance domain.

The present invention defines a method of determining a vertical profile signal of a rail surface that includes, obtaining a vertical acceleration signal acc.sub.1, by measuring vertical acceleration of a bogie of a rail vehicle that runs on the rail surface; processing the vertical acceleration signal to obtain a vertical velocity signal; determining the vertical profile signal of the rail surface, by using the vertical acceleration signal and the vertical velocity signal as inputs to a simulation model of the bogie, the model having an unsprung mass connected to a sprung mass, the vertical acceleration signal acc.sub.1 represents the vertical acceleration of the unsprung mass; and measuring a linear velocity signal of the rail vehicle, the linear velocity signal is used in the step of determining to convert the vertical profile signal from the time domain to the distance domain.