GLiDR: Topologically Regularized Graph Generative Network for Sparse LiDAR Point Clouds

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Main Authors: Kumar, Prashant, Bhat, Kshitij Madhav, Nadkarni, Vedang Bhupesh Shenvi, Kalra, Prem
Format: Preprint
Published: 2023
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author Kumar, Prashant
Bhat, Kshitij Madhav
Nadkarni, Vedang Bhupesh Shenvi
Kalra, Prem
author_facet Kumar, Prashant
Bhat, Kshitij Madhav
Nadkarni, Vedang Bhupesh Shenvi
Kalra, Prem
contents Sparse LiDAR point clouds cause severe loss of detail of static structures and reduce the density of static points available for navigation. Reduced density can be detrimental to navigation under several scenarios. We observe that despite high sparsity, in most cases, the global topology of LiDAR outlining the static structures can be inferred. We utilize this property to obtain a backbone skeleton of a LiDAR scan in the form of a single connected component that is a proxy to its global topology. We utilize the backbone to augment new points along static structures to overcome sparsity. Newly introduced points could correspond to existing static structures or to static points that were earlier obstructed by dynamic objects. To the best of our knowledge, we are the first to use such a strategy for sparse LiDAR point clouds. Existing solutions close to our approach fail to identify and preserve the global static LiDAR topology and generate sub-optimal points. We propose GLiDR, a Graph Generative network that is topologically regularized using 0-dimensional Persistent Homology ($\mathcal{PH}$) constraints. This enables GLiDR to introduce newer static points along a topologically consistent global static LiDAR backbone. GLiDR generates precise static points using $32\times$ sparser dynamic scans and performs better than the baselines across three datasets. GLiDR generates a valuable byproduct - an accurate binary segmentation mask of static and dynamic objects that are helpful for navigation planning and safety in constrained environments. The newly introduced static points allow GLiDR to outperform LiDAR-based navigation using SLAM in several settings. Source code is available at https://kshitijbhat.github.io/glidr
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2312_00068
institution arXiv
publishDate 2023
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle GLiDR: Topologically Regularized Graph Generative Network for Sparse LiDAR Point Clouds
Kumar, Prashant
Bhat, Kshitij Madhav
Nadkarni, Vedang Bhupesh Shenvi
Kalra, Prem
Robotics
Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
Sparse LiDAR point clouds cause severe loss of detail of static structures and reduce the density of static points available for navigation. Reduced density can be detrimental to navigation under several scenarios. We observe that despite high sparsity, in most cases, the global topology of LiDAR outlining the static structures can be inferred. We utilize this property to obtain a backbone skeleton of a LiDAR scan in the form of a single connected component that is a proxy to its global topology. We utilize the backbone to augment new points along static structures to overcome sparsity. Newly introduced points could correspond to existing static structures or to static points that were earlier obstructed by dynamic objects. To the best of our knowledge, we are the first to use such a strategy for sparse LiDAR point clouds. Existing solutions close to our approach fail to identify and preserve the global static LiDAR topology and generate sub-optimal points. We propose GLiDR, a Graph Generative network that is topologically regularized using 0-dimensional Persistent Homology ($\mathcal{PH}$) constraints. This enables GLiDR to introduce newer static points along a topologically consistent global static LiDAR backbone. GLiDR generates precise static points using $32\times$ sparser dynamic scans and performs better than the baselines across three datasets. GLiDR generates a valuable byproduct - an accurate binary segmentation mask of static and dynamic objects that are helpful for navigation planning and safety in constrained environments. The newly introduced static points allow GLiDR to outperform LiDAR-based navigation using SLAM in several settings. Source code is available at https://kshitijbhat.github.io/glidr
title GLiDR: Topologically Regularized Graph Generative Network for Sparse LiDAR Point Clouds
topic Robotics
Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2312.00068