System and method for weld path generation

A system comprising:

• a robot;
• one or more three dimensional sensor devices associated with the robot configured to scan a welding area and generate a scanned welding area;
• and
• one or more processors configured to receive the scanned welding area and to generate a three dimensional point cloud based upon, at least in part the scanned welding area, the one or more processors further configured to perform processing on the three dimensional point cloud in a two-dimensional domain, wherein performing processing on the three dimensional point cloud in a two-dimensional domain includes converting the three dimensional point cloud to a height field and subsequently applying a local minimum filter, the one or more processors further configured to perform image thinning and branch removal prior to converting the height field back to a three dimensional space, the one or more processors further configured to utilize the converted height field to generate one or more three dimensional welding paths and to simulate the one or more three dimensional welding paths, wherein the one or more processors are communicatively coupled to a graphical user interface configured to allow a user to select a filter size, select a point cloud for processing, visualize a weld path result or save the one or more three-dimensional welding paths.