A noise-reduction algorithm for raw 3D point cloud data of asphalt pavement surface texture

High-precision 3D point cloud data have various analyses and application use cases. This study aimed to achieve a more precise noise reduction of the raw 3D point cloud data of asphalt pavements obtained using 3D laser scanning. Hence, a noise-reduction algorithm integrating improved Gaussian filtering and coefficient of variation was developed. A portable laser scanner was used to collect raw, high-precision 3D point cloud data of surface textures from pavement slab samples prepared with three different types of asphalt mixtures: AC-13, SMA-13, and OGFC-13, as well as asphalt from the test sections of the Yakang Expressway. An improved Gaussian filtering and Gaussian filtering that extracts noise using the coefficient of variation were used to filter out the obvious outlier noise and small-scale burr noise, respectively. Finally, the filtering effect of the proposed algorithm, Gaussian filtering, median filtering, and mean filtering on raw 3D point cloud data of pavement textures was evaluated through subjective visual quality and objective index evaluations. The results showed that the proposed algorithm filters out noise while preserving the micro-texture structure information, outperforming Gaussian filtering, median filtering, and mean filtering.