Reconstruction and Analysis of 3D Scenes: From Irregularly Distributed 3D Points to Object

Classes. Martin Weinmann. Springer International Publishing AG. 2016. 233 pages, hardcover.
ISBN 3319292447. $142.65 from Amazon.
https://www.amazon.com/Reconstruction-Analysis-Scenes-Irregularly-
Distributed/dp/3319292447/ref=mt_hardcover

Reviewed by: Ed Freeborn, CTO Unmanned Experts

This research monograph introduces and describes the author’s framework for fully automated

processing and analysis of point clouds focusing on general applicability and a workflow

spanning the processing of raw 3D point cloud data to the production of semantic or classified

objects in a scene (see Figure 1). This is done in the context of an extensive review of

fundamental elements of 2D and 3D data processing and related work. The intended audience

“includes a broad community of people who are dealing with 3D point cloud processing,

reaching from students at undergraduate or graduate level to lecturers, practitioners and

researchers in photogrammetry, remote sensing, computer vision and robotics.”i

Figure 1 Reconstruction, Figure 6.1, "The proposed framework for 3D scene analysis"ii

After three introductory chapters, Reconstruction devotes a chapter to three fundamental

problems in point cloud processing and closes with a chapter summarizing conclusions and

future work. Chapter 1 presents an overview of the work and the book’s topics and structure.

The chapters are intended to contain all the book’s materials on a topic in one place and this

structure supports the book’s use as a reference or for tutorial study. Chapter 2 provides general

definitions; passive and active techniques for point cloud data generation; range and intensity
image representations of point clouds; and point quality assessment. Chapter 3 covers 2D image

and 3D point cloud feature extraction, including corresponding definitions of features. Chapters

4, 5 and 6 cover three crucial point cloud processing tasks respectively:

4. The combination of point clouds

5. Mapping complementary data acquired with different types of sensors onto existing

point clouds (e.g. thermal imagery onto a point cloud)

6. Automated interpretation of a point cloud scene in support of semantic class labeling

Each of these chapters is structured to provide motivation for the work and the author’s

contributions to the task; related work in a short literature review; a technical explanation and

theory of operation; experimental evaluation using benchmark datasets; discussion; conclusions

and references. This chapter structure mirrors the overall summary of the book provided in

Chapter 1, and, along with a good table of contents and a short but comprehensive index, helps to

make the body of work very accessible and useful as a reference.

The goal of the work reported in Reconstruction and Analysis of 3D Scenes, based on Dr.

Weinmann’s PhD thesis work, is to generate a semantically labeled point cloud with a minimum

of human intervention. While it is successful at achieving this goal, it is similar to the long

parade of airborne or satellite image processing papers that we have all read over the past

decades. They leave you saying, “Well, if the author had just tried this,” or “I would have done

it this way for what I need to do.” One of the primary differences between those articles and the

research monograph/book format is the notion that Dr. Weinmann probably did try it this way, or

he did do it that way in Reconstruction, but if not, he probably considered that option and tells

you why he didn’t. He goes on to report the results of applying his 3D scene analysis framework

to multiple benchmark point cloud data sets using multiple configurations that give the reader a
pretty good grasp of what the technology is capable of accomplishing. Additionally, beyond the

level of simply reporting results from standard procedures, Dr. Weinmann advances the state of

the art by answering what would appear to be fundamental questions regarding the interactions

affecting workflow among the processing elements that comprise his framework (Figure 1).

1. Neighborhood Selection – to contain the local description of a feature’s 3D geometric

structure, which relies on the spatial arrangement of all 3D points in the neighborhood

2. Feature Extraction – addresses the design of suitable features

3. Optimized Feature Selection – addresses the Hughes phenomenon, where an

increasing number of features will decrease a classifier’s predictive power

4. Supervised Classification – considers classifier selection and performance in the

context of optimizing all 4 elements to satisfy constraints of simplicity, efficiency and

reproducibility

Reconstruction succeeds at multiple levels, making it a worthwhile addition to your reference

shelf. As a research monograph, Reconstruction is a fantastic resource regarding work that has

been done in point cloud processing. This book also shines as a practical exploration and

comparison of fundamental point cloud processing tasks and algorithms, which will give

researchers, developers and practitioners a basis for choosing their own candidate path through a

forest of point cloud processing methods, or as a starting point for their own research. As

original work, Dr. Weinmann clearly identifies the contributions he has made and the broader

motivations for addressing a problem in the first place.

From the perspective of a practitioner seeking to understand the point cloud processing tools that

he or she may be working with, Reconstruction provides a great entrée into developing an

understanding of the existing body of work. Although it was published in 2016, and this is a
rapidly moving field, it is certainly timely enough that it should provide a sufficient basis for

getting up to speed with the most recent developments. However, that is not always necessary,

because for a book as recent as this one, the most cutting edge research is often not implemented

yet in off the shelf software. What is usually more frustrating for the practitioner is the black

box nature of the software that one works with, and trying to get an idea what is going on under

the hood when you are making a buying decision. Hopefully this book can arm you with

sufficient knowledge to ask your vendor intelligent questions.

From the perspective of the researcher or developer, you can compare your own bibliography

with Dr. Weinmann’s extensive citations to see where yours may be lacking, or understand how

his perspective might differ from your own. Personally, thinking of reconstruction, as referenced

in the title, puts me more in mind of the 3D visualization and simulation and the geometry of

closed 3D shapes or objects. Once it became apparent that Dr. Weinmann’s focus was on the

exploitation of an object’s local surface structure information, or representing arbitrary 3D

shapes,iii the sources cited looked appropriate, current and fairly comprehensive. They included

sources associated with computer vision and photogrammetry & remote sensing. Finally, as

noted above, the structure of the book makes it very accessible as both a reference work and a

snapshot report of a researcher’s work, and perhaps the best part from a research perspective is

that Dr. Weinmann continues his work in the field, publishes extensively,iv and makes software

available.v

In summary, Reconstruction is successful in achieving multiple objectives and in potentially

appealing to multiple audiences. While not intended as a textbook due to the short shelf life of

the specific work in presents, its collection and review of fundamentals and related work means

it could very well serve as a text for a focused graduate or undergraduate course. It certainly
deserves reading and a place on the reference shelf for researchers, developers and practitioners.

All of the audiences would also be well served to track Dr. Weinmann’s ongoing research to see

where work in this field is heading.

i
Weinmann, M., 2016. Reconstruction and Analysis of 3D Scenes, p xi.
ii
Landrieu, Loic, Hugo Raguet, Bruno Vallet, Clément Mallet, and Martin Weinmann. "A structured regularization
framework for spatially smoothing semantic labelings of 3D point clouds." ISPRS Journal of Photogrammetry and
Remote Sensing 132 (2017): p 106.
iii
Reconstruction, p 46.
iv
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Martin_Weinmann/contributions
v
Reconstruction, p 213, and https://www.ipf.kit.edu/code.php