Tolerance Compliance Measurement Using Terrestrial Laser Scanner

Terrestrial laser scanning (TLS) provides remote sensing and a quick and comprehensive technique for deviation analyses. Its application for precision surveying purposes is becoming a common practice. There are many interdependent parameters that determine whether the accuracy obtained during the data collection and registration is appropriate to perform deviation analyses. Also, the accuracy of deviation analyses is reflected on visualisation/demonstration of results. However, the focus of previous research works has often been on either data acquisition, data registration, deviation analyses, or visualisation of results. The research described in this paper consolidates and formalises the existing methods in the literature and practice for data acquisition and data processing. In doing so, the aim is to develop a holistic method termed Tolerance Compliance Measurement (TCM) using TLS to obtain results from deviation analyses with the desired accuracy. Moreover, unlike the previous research works that mainly focus on assessment of flatness of surfaces, the appropriateness of the most common algorithms for assessment of different types of geometric variation is explored. The results show that the application of TLS and commercially available software are versatile although not complete for analyses of different types of geometric variation.