Tom Austin wrote:
> 
> Methods or programs to 'simplify' the resulting point cloud so that it 
> still is a fair representation of the overall area, but has much fewer 
> points ~300k.
> 
> Methods or programs to create a single mesh of the resulting point cloud 
> that can represent tunnels.
> 


That's a nifty problem! I might have some ideas, but first I have a few 
questions about it:

* I'm talking it that each scan was done from a different location, so 
while each individual scan can be represents a `spherical' cloud of 
points the union of the scans does not?

* I assume that the final goal is the mesh and that the first task is 
just needed so that the resulting mesh is relatively small?  I ask 
because if so then it might be reasonable to generate a large mesh and 
then simplify it later, which would allow different algorithms.

* In terms of simplifying the point cloud/mesh, what are the accuracy 
requirements of the simplification with respect to the density of the 
point cloud from the scans?  In other words, if the scans are very dense 
but you don't actually need that sort of accuracy in the mesh/simplified 
cloud then you can probably get away with simpler algorithms than if you 
need really high resolution in some areas and can only get away with 
discarding points which don't contribute anything useful to the 
geometry.  For instance, would it be sufficient to simplify the point 
cloud by simply discarding all points which are within, say 10cm, of 
each other?

* Have you tried existing approaches for generating a mesh from a point 
cloud?  If so, did they not work because you have too many points for 
them to operate effectively?

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