Estimating Surface Normals

in Noisy Point Cloud Data

Niloy J. Mitra, An Nguyen

Stanford University
The Normal Estimation Problem

 Given
Noisy PCD sampled from
a curve/surface

Normal Estimation for Noisy PCD Symposium on Computational Geometry

The Normal Estimation Problem

 Given
Noisy PCD sampled from
a curve/surface

 Goal
Compute surface normals
at each point p

Error bound the normal estimates

Normal Estimation for Noisy PCD Symposium on Computational Geometry

 A Standard Solution

Use least square fit to a neighborhood of

radius r around point p

Normal Estimation for Noisy PCD Symposium on Computational Geometry

 A Standard Solution

Use least square fit to a neighborhood of

radius r around point p

PROBLEM !!
what neighborhood size to choose?

Normal Estimation for Noisy PCD Symposium on Computational Geometry

 Contributions of this paper
 Study the effects of curvature, noise,
sampling density on the choice of
neighborhood size.

 Use this insight to choose an optimal

neighborhood size.

 Compute bound on the estimation error.

Normal Estimation for Noisy PCD Symposium on Computational Geometry

Outline

 Problem statement
 Related work
 Neighborhood Size Estimation
 Analysis in 2D and 3D
 Applications
 Future Work

Normal Estimation for Noisy PCD Symposium on Computational Geometry

Related Work

 Surface reconstruction
 crust, cocone, etc
 Guarantees about the surface normals
 Mostly works in absence of noise

 Curve/Surface fitting
 pointShop3D, point-set
 Works in presence of noise
 Performance guarantees?

Normal Estimation for Noisy PCD Symposium on Computational Geometry

 Least Square Fit
aTp=c
 Assume
best fit hyperplane: aTp=c
 Minimize k
1
 i
k i 1
( a T
p  c ) 2

 Reduces to the eigen-analysis of

the covariance matrix

 Smallest eigenvector of M is the estimate of the

normal
1 k
M   pi  p pi  p
k i 1
T
  
Normal Estimation for Noisy PCD Symposium on Computational Geometry
Deceptive Case

Collusive noise

Normal Estimation for Noisy PCD Symposium on Computational Geometry

Deceptive Cases

Collusive noise

Curvature effect
Normal Estimation for Noisy PCD Symposium on Computational Geometry
Outline

 Problem statement
 Related work
 Neighborhood Size Estimation
 Analysis in 2D and 3D
 Applications
 Future Work

Normal Estimation for Noisy PCD Symposium on Computational Geometry

 Assumptions

 Noise
 Independent of measurement
 Zero mean
 Variance is known (noise need not be bounded)
 Data
 Sampling criterion satisfied
 Evenly distributed data
 To prevent biased estimates
 Curvature is bounded

Normal Estimation for Noisy PCD Symposium on Computational Geometry

Sampling Criteria (2D)
Sampling density
• lower bound (like Nyquist rate)
• upper bound (to prevent biased fits)

Evenly distributed
Number of points in a disc of radius r bounded
above and below by (1)r

(,) sampling condition [Dey et. al.] implies

evenly distributed.

Normal Estimation for Noisy PCD Symposium on Computational Geometry

Modeling (2D)
y x

 At a point O O
2r

 Points of PCD inside a disc of radius r comes

from a segment of the curve
 y = g(x) define the curve for all x[-r,r]
 Bounded curvature: |g’’(x)|< for all x
 Additive Noise(n) in y-direction (x,g(x)+n)
 r, n/r assumed to be small

Normal Estimation for Noisy PCD Symposium on Computational Geometry

Proof Idea

 Eigen-analysis of covariance matrix

 m11 m12 
M  
 21
m m22 

Normal Estimation for Noisy PCD Symposium on Computational Geometry

Proof Idea
 m11 m12 
M  
 covariance matrix  21
m m22 

 let,
=(|m12|+m22)/m11

Normal Estimation for Noisy PCD Symposium on Computational Geometry

Proof Idea
 m11 m12 
M  
 covariance matrix  21
m m22 

 let, =(|m12|+m22)/m11
 error angle bounded by,
  (1   ) 
1
tan   
2 
 (1   ) 
 to bound estimation error,
need to bound 

Normal Estimation for Noisy PCD Symposium on Computational Geometry

Bounding Terms of M

 m11 m12 
M  
m21 m22 

 For evenly distributed samples it follows,

1

2
m11  ( xi  x )  (1)r 2
k

1

2
m22  ( yi  y )  (1)( 2 r 4  n 2 )
k

| m12 | ?

Normal Estimation for Noisy PCD Symposium on Computational Geometry

Bounding m12  m11 m12 
M  
 21
m m22 

 Evenly sampled distribution

 Noise and measurement are uncorrelated
 E(xn)= E(x)E(n)= 0

 Var(xn)= (1)r2n2

 Chebyshev Inequality
 x n  E ( xn) with probability (1-)
1
 bound i i
k i

 Finally,
r
| m12 | (1)r 3  (1) n


Normal Estimation for Noisy PCD Symposium on Computational Geometry

Bounding Estimation Error

1
 i
2
m11  ( x  x )   (1) r 2

1

2
m22  ( yi  y )   (1)( 2 4
r  n 2
)
k

r
| m12 | (1)r 3  (1) n


=(|m12|+m22)/m11

Normal Estimation for Noisy PCD Symposium on Computational Geometry

Final Result in 2D

n  n2
  (1)r  (1)  (1)
r 3 r2

•  = 0,
take as large a neighborhood as possible

Normal Estimation for Noisy PCD Symposium on Computational Geometry

Final Result in 2D

n  n2
  (1)r  (1)  (1)
r 3 r2

•  = 0, take as large a neighborhood as possible

•  n= 0
take as small a neighborhood as possible

Normal Estimation for Noisy PCD Symposium on Computational Geometry

Experiments in 2D

n  n2
error  (1)r  (1)  (1)
r 3 r2

Normal Estimation for Noisy PCD Symposium on Computational Geometry

Result for 3D

A similar but involved analysis results in,

error  (1)r  (1) n /( r 2  )  (1) n2 / r 2

A good choice of r is,

1/ 3
1   
r    c1 n  c2 n  
2
   
  

Normal Estimation for Noisy PCD Symposium on Computational Geometry

How can we use this result?
1/ 3
1   
r    c1 n  c2 n2  
   
  
 Need to
 know
 estimate suitable values for
 estimate locally

Normal Estimation for Noisy PCD Symposium on Computational Geometry

Estimating c1, c2

Exact normals known at almost all points

1/ 3
1  
r    c1 n
 c2 n  
2
   
  

c1=1, c2=4
• same constants used for
following results

Normal Estimation for Noisy PCD Symposium on Computational Geometry

Algorithm

 For each point, start with k =15

 Iterate and refine (maximum of 10 steps)
 Compute r, ,  [Gumhold et al.] locally

 Use them to compute rnew

 knew = rnew old

2

 Stop if

 k>threshold
 k saturates

Normal Estimation for Noisy PCD Symposium on Computational Geometry

Effect of Curvature on Neighborhood
Size

1x noise

Normal Estimation for Noisy PCD Symposium on Computational Geometry

Effect of Noise on Neighborhood
Size

1x noise 2x noise

Normal Estimation for Noisy PCD Symposium on Computational Geometry

 o
Estimation Error > 5

1x noise 2x noise

Normal Estimation for Noisy PCD Symposium on Computational Geometry

Increasing Noise
Can still get good
estimates in flat areas

1x noise 2x noise 4x noise

Normal Estimation for Noisy PCD Symposium on Computational Geometry

Future Work

 How to find a suitable neighborhood size for good

curvature estimation
 Find a better way for estimating c1, c2
 Design of a sparse query data structure for quick
extraction of normal, curvature, etc from PCDs

Normal Estimation for Noisy PCD Symposium on Computational Geometry

Different Noise Distribution
(same variance)

uniform gaussian

Normal Estimation for Noisy PCD Symposium on Computational Geometry

Result: phone

1x noise

Normal Estimation for Noisy PCD Symposium on Computational Geometry

Varying neighborhood size

Neighborhood size at all

points being shown using
color-coding. Purple
denotes the smallest
neighborhood and turns
blue as the neighborhood
size increases

Normal Estimation for Noisy PCD Symposium on Computational Geometry