3D EDGE DETECTION BASED ON NORMAL VECTORS

Abstract. Edge detection is supported by extensive research and is part of different photogrammetric and computer vision tasks across numerous application areas. While 2D edge detection may achieve high accuracy results from several automated methods, the automation of edge detection in 3D space remains a challenge. Existing methods are often computationally demanding and heavily parameterized, leading to a lack of adaptability. In real-world applications 3D edges, representing the object boundaries and break lines, are crucial, particularly in fields such as computer vision, robotics and architecture. In this context, we present a method that automates 3D edge detection in 3D point clouds exploiting the normal vectors’ direction differences to detect finite edges, which are further pruned and grouped to edge segments and fitted to indicate the presence of a 3D edge.