System and method providing a scalable and efficient space filling curve approach to point cloud feature generation

A database system, comprising:

• a processor;
• a data cache configured to store at least one record of point cloud data, wherein the at least one record of point cloud data represents a plurality of points of at least one point cloud in a multi-dimensional space, and wherein each point of the plurality of points is defined by:
• at least one attribute value of an attribute of the point, and
• a set of coordinates in the multi-dimensional space for the point;
• a read/write module stored in a non-transitory computer-readable medium including instructions that when executed cause the processor to read the at least one record of the point cloud data from the data cache;
• a transforming module stored in the non-transitory computer-readable medium including instructions that when executed cause the processor to transform the set of coordinates for each point of the plurality of points into a space-filling distance value representing a distance along a single dimensional space-filling curve, wherein the single dimensional space-filling curve is a Hilbert curve;
• a sorting module stored in the non-transitory computer-readable medium including instructions that when executed cause the processor to sort the plurality of points according to the space-filling distance value of each point of the plurality of points to generate a sorted order of the plurality of points;
• an analysis module stored in the non-transitory computer-readable medium including instructions that when executed cause the processor to perform:
• traversing of the plurality of points in the sorted order, and
• deriving of output data points during the traversing based on at least one specified feature criterion, wherein the output data points identify at least one feature within the at least one point cloud.

A non-transitory computer-readable medium storing instructions that, when executed by one or more processors of a computing device, cause the computing device to at least:

• control a reading of point cloud data of at least one point cloud from at least one data structure via the one or more processors, wherein the point cloud data represents a plurality of points of the at least one point cloud in a multi-dimensional space, and wherein each point of the plurality of points is defined by:
• at least one attribute value of an attribute of the point, wherein the attribute includes one of intensity, elevation, color, density, temperature, return number, or number-of-occurrences;
• and
• a set of coordinates in the multi-dimensional space for the point;
• control a transforming of, via the one or more processors, the set of coordinates for each point of the plurality of points into a space-filling distance value representing a distance along a single dimensional space-filling curve;
• control a sorting of, via the one or more processors, the plurality of points according to the space-filling distance value of each point of the plurality of points to generate a sorted order of the plurality of points;
• control a traversing of, via the one or more processors, the plurality of points in the sorted order;
• and
• generating, via the one or more processors, output data points during the traversing based on at least one specified feature criterion, wherein the output data points identify at least one feature within the at least one point cloud.