Processing point clouds of vehicle sensors having variable scan line distributions using interpolation functions

A non-transitory computer-readable medium storing thereon instructions executable by one or more processors to implement a self-driving control architecture of a vehicle, the self-driving control architecture comprising:

• a perception component configured to:
• receive a point cloud frame generated by a sensor configured to sense an environment through which a vehicle is moving, the point cloud frame including a plurality of scan lines arranged according to a particular spatial distribution,
• construct, based on points of the received point cloud frame, a three-dimensional mesh, including forming triangles from subsets of the points of the received point cloud frame,
• generate, by performing an interpolation function on a virtual surface provided by the three-dimensional mesh, a normalized point cloud frame, including generating points within planes of the triangles and at positions that at least approximate a reference scan line distribution, and
• generate, using the normalized point cloud frame, signals descriptive of a current state of the environment through which the vehicle is moving.

A vehicle comprising:

• a sensor configured to sense an environment through which the vehicle is moving and generate point cloud frames;
• one or more operational subsystems;
• and
• a computing system configured to:
• receive a point cloud frame generated by the sensor, the point cloud frame including a plurality of scan lines arranged according to a particular spatial distribution,
• construct, based on points of the received point cloud frame, a three-dimensional mesh, including forming triangles from subsets of the points of the received point cloud frame,
• generate, by performing an interpolation function on a virtual surface provided by the three-dimensional mesh, a normalized point cloud frame, including generating points within planes of the triangles and at positions that at least approximate a reference scan line distribution,
• generate, using the normalized point cloud frame, signals descriptive of a current state of the environment through which the vehicle is moving,
• generate driving decisions based on the signals descriptive of the current state of the environment, and
• cause the one or more operational subsystems of the vehicle to maneuver the vehicle in accordance with the generated driving decisions.