A Study on the Global and Spatial Distribution Evaluation of the Geometric State of Exterior Walls Based on Point Clouds
Open Access
Abstract
This study proposes an integrated terrestrial laser scanning (TLS)-based workflow for quantitatively and spatially assessing the relative geometric condition of exterior wall surfaces. The workflow consists of point-cloud acquisition, ROI definition, reference-plane estimation, signed-depth computation, grid-based spatial aggregation, specimen-based validation, and real exterior wall application. Rather than introducing a fundamentally new point-cloud processing algorithm, the main contribution lies in integrating established processing steps into a consistent surface-based assessment procedure and extending deviation evaluation from simple numerical summaries to spatial interpretation. A 3D-printed validation specimen with designed defect depths of 1, 3, 5, and 7 mm was used for quantitative validation. Among 136 designed defects, 123 ground-truth-mapped ROIs were evaluated, resulting in an MAE of 0.795 mm, RMSE of 1.168 mm, and P95 error of 2.511 mm. A RANSAC threshold-based sensitivity analysis confirmed that the final refined reference plane and major signed-depth statistics remained stable within the tested threshold range. The workflow was further applied to a real exterior wall dataset with 29,933,332 strict-ROI points, yielding a mean signed depth of 2.448 mm, median of 2.691 mm, RMSE of 9.956 mm, P95 of 17.121 mm, and maximum value of 90.827 mm. High-deviation regions with an absolute centered signed depth of 15 mm or greater occupied 28.218 m2, corresponding to 10.62% of the valid analysis area, and were distributed across 57 connected clusters. These results indicate that the proposed workflow can support both quantitative deviation assessment and spatial interpretation of high-deviation regions, while the real exterior wall results should be interpreted as a relative geometric assessment and feasibility demonstration rather than absolute accuracy validation or structural damage assessment.Keywords
Funding Information
- Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport (RS-2022-00141900)
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