Real time 3D mesh / Point cloud volume calculation

Software
1

hello,

a newbie here.
I have a case where I need to scan a pile of snow with the ZED 2i camera and I need to calculate the snow volume in real-time.
any recommended approach or method?
(what I am thinking is using a library like PCL or Open3d combined with RTabmap but I am not sure how to do it and whether or not it will work. )
any help or recommended resources/ papers would be appreciated.

2

Hello and thank you for reaching out to us,

To be honest, a pile of snow may be very challenging. It’s white, its texture is very uniform, I don’t know about your lightning conditions. What you should do is retrieve the point cloud in NEURAL mode, and check if that is what you expect.
If this is it, you can then measure the volume by using the point cloud.

Antoine

3

Hello antoine,

thanks for your reply.
let’s say for now the problem is not the snow pile ( I know snow might be reflective and difficult to create a point cloud. so let’s consider a pile of soil,
my main issue is how to calculate the point cloud volume in real-time, can you help me with this one?
thanks.

4

Hello,

I would use simple geometric calculation. Given the altitude (Z) of one point, given the distance between two points (X - Y), and if you know your pile starts at altitude 0, it’ll be easy.

Antoine

1 Like
5

okay, I will try this approach.
thanks, @alassagne .