Estimating and visualizing terrain parameters for excavation

A system comprising:

• at least one hardware processor;
• and
• software that is configured to, when executed by the at least one hardware processor,
• generate touchpoints from an output of one or more linkage sensors on a machine including a ground engaging member configured to drive the machine across a ground surface, wherein each of the touchpoints comprises a three-dimensional coordinate, and wherein the output represents a characteristic of a work implement of the machine resulting from touching a ground surface without movement of the machine across the ground surface by the ground engaging member before use of the work implement to perform a material removal operation,
• determine a terrain surface of the ground surface from the touchpoints,
• generate a two-dimensional visual representation of the terrain surface by projecting the terrain surface onto an image plane, and
• display on a display a camera view with the two-dimensional visual representation of the terrain surface overlaid thereon.

A non-transitory computer-readable medium having instructions stored thereon, wherein the instructions, when executed by a processor, cause the processor to:

• generate touchpoints from an output of one or more linkage sensors on a machine, wherein each of the touchpoints comprises a three-dimensional coordinate, and wherein the output represents a characteristic of a work implement of the machine resulting from touching a ground surface with the work implement when at least a portion of the machine is at rest relative to the ground surface over which the machine is configured to move, wherein the generating occurs prior to performing digging of the ground surface with the work implement;
• determine a terrain surface of the surface from the one or more touchpoints;
• generate a two-dimensional visual representation of the terrain surface by projecting the terrain surface onto an image plane;
• and
• output to a display a camera view and the two-dimensional visual representation of the terrain surface overlaid onto the camera view prior to the digging of the ground surface with the work implement.