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Main Authors: Carnot, Miriam Louise, Peukert, Eric, Franczyk, Bogdan
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
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Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2402.18309
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author Carnot, Miriam Louise
Peukert, Eric
Franczyk, Bogdan
author_facet Carnot, Miriam Louise
Peukert, Eric
Franczyk, Bogdan
contents In the efforts for safer roads, ensuring adequate vertical clearance above roadways is of great importance. Frequently, trees or other vegetation is growing above the roads, blocking the sight of traffic signs and lights and posing danger to traffic participants. Accurately estimating this space from simple images proves challenging due to a lack of depth information. This is where LiDAR technology comes into play, a laser scanning sensor that reveals a three-dimensional perspective. Thus far, LiDAR point clouds at the street level have mainly been used for applications in the field of autonomous driving. These scans, however, also open up possibilities in urban management. In this paper, we present a new point cloud algorithm that can automatically detect those parts of the trees that grow over the street and need to be trimmed. Our system uses semantic segmentation to filter relevant points and downstream processing steps to create the required volume to be kept clear above the road. Challenges include obscured stretches of road, the noisy unstructured nature of LiDAR point clouds, and the assessment of the road shape. The identified points of non-compliant trees can be projected from the point cloud onto images, providing municipalities with a visual aid for dealing with such occurrences. By automating this process, municipalities can address potential road space constraints, enhancing safety for all. They may also save valuable time by carrying out the inspections more systematically. Our open-source code gives communities inspiration on how to automate the process themselves.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2402_18309
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Enhancing Roadway Safety: LiDAR-based Tree Clearance Analysis
Carnot, Miriam Louise
Peukert, Eric
Franczyk, Bogdan
Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
Artificial Intelligence
Computational Geometry
In the efforts for safer roads, ensuring adequate vertical clearance above roadways is of great importance. Frequently, trees or other vegetation is growing above the roads, blocking the sight of traffic signs and lights and posing danger to traffic participants. Accurately estimating this space from simple images proves challenging due to a lack of depth information. This is where LiDAR technology comes into play, a laser scanning sensor that reveals a three-dimensional perspective. Thus far, LiDAR point clouds at the street level have mainly been used for applications in the field of autonomous driving. These scans, however, also open up possibilities in urban management. In this paper, we present a new point cloud algorithm that can automatically detect those parts of the trees that grow over the street and need to be trimmed. Our system uses semantic segmentation to filter relevant points and downstream processing steps to create the required volume to be kept clear above the road. Challenges include obscured stretches of road, the noisy unstructured nature of LiDAR point clouds, and the assessment of the road shape. The identified points of non-compliant trees can be projected from the point cloud onto images, providing municipalities with a visual aid for dealing with such occurrences. By automating this process, municipalities can address potential road space constraints, enhancing safety for all. They may also save valuable time by carrying out the inspections more systematically. Our open-source code gives communities inspiration on how to automate the process themselves.
title Enhancing Roadway Safety: LiDAR-based Tree Clearance Analysis
topic Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
Artificial Intelligence
Computational Geometry
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2402.18309