Performance Evaluation of Terrestrial Laser Scanners - A Review

Terrestrial laser scanners (TLSs) are increasingly used in several applications such as reverse engineering, digital reconstruction of historical monuments, geodesy and surveying, deformation monitoring of structures, forensic crime scene preservation, manufacturing and assembly of engineering components, and architectural, engineering, and construction (AEC) applications. The tolerances required in these tasks range from few tens of millimeters (for example, in historical monument digitization) to few tens of micrometers (for example, in high precision manufacturing and assembly). With numerous TLS instrument manufacturers, each offering multiple models of TLSs with idiosyncratic specifications, it is a considerable challenge for users to compare instruments or evaluate their performance to determine if they meet specifications. As a result, considerable efforts have been made by research groups across the world to model TLS error sources and to develop specialized performance evaluation test procedures. In this paper, we review these efforts including recent work to develop documentary standards for TLS performance evaluation and discuss the role of these test procedures in establishing metrological traceability of TLS measurements.