Example Use Case - 3D Point Cloud
- Allen Cook
- Sam Wood
3D Scanning: (*items are 3rd party available, not supplied by Navtech Radar)
By articulating a RAS 6 2D Radar it is possible to create a 3-dimensional point cloud. To demonstrate this a Navtech RAS 6 radar was attached to a servo-mechanism* and the following field trial was undertaken.
Apparatus required:
Navtech RAS 6 Radar, configured for a forward facing FOV using sector blanking, Range limited to 200m, running at 4Hz 800 azimuth mode.
Servo-mechanism* with planetary gearbox and encoder - control achieved via ethernet communication*.
PC running Navtech SDK with interface to control electronics via ethernet*.
Application to rotate Radar and read data points utilising ‘Navigation mode’ which returns points above a pre-defined threshold. Returned points are converted to Cartesian co-ordinates and saved to a file.
Data rates / resolution:
Radar Mode (RAS 6) | Horizontal / Vertical Resolution | Max Scan rate (Deg. / second) |
|---|---|---|
4Hz, 800 Azimuth | 0.45° / 0.45° | 1.8° / second |
4Hz, 800 Azimuth | 0.45° / 0.9° | 3.6° / second |
8Hz, 400 Azimuth | 0.9° / 0.45° | 3.6° / second |
8Hz, 400 Azimuth | 0.9° / 0.9° | 7.2° / second |
For this example, a section of a rock face in a Quarry was scanned using the Radar mounted on a static vehicle
The resulting point cloud file is then read into an application which is able to display the points in 3d space.
By generating Normals, it is possible to generate a mesh to represent the scanned object - in this case terrain from a Quarry.
We acknowledge the traditional owners of country throughout Australia and their continuing connection to land, culture and community, and pay my respect to elders past and present