Urban 3D modeling with mobile laser scanning: a review

Mobile laser scanning (MLS) systems mainly comprise laser scanners and mobile mapping platforms. Typical MLS systems are able to acquire three-dimensional point clouds with 1-10 centimeter point spacing at a normal driving or walking speed in the street or indoor environments. The MLS' advantages of efficiency and stability make it a quite practical tool for three-dimensional urban modeling. This paper reviews the latest advances in 3D modeling of the LiDAR-based mobile mapping system (MMS) point cloud, including LiDAR Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM), point cloud registration, feature extraction, object extraction, semantic segmentation, and deep learning processing. Then typical urban modeling applications based on MMS are also discussed.