Street curb and median detection using LIDAR data

A method of extracting curb data from street and road data obtained from a dataset obtained using LIDAR techniques to scan a terrestrial region of the earth's surface of interest to form said dataset, the method comprising the steps of:

• inputting data representing the street and road data input into a ray tracing algorithm along with a slice of the dataset around detected streets, finding gradients in the slice of data and filtering the gradients so that only abrupt gradient changes remain, the ray tracing algorithm finding curb and median points using the abrupt gradient changes;
• and
• using heuristic associations or algorithms to stitch detected curb and median points into said curb data associated with said street grid.

A method of extracting curb and median data from street and road data obtained from a dataset obtained using LIDAR techniques to scan a terrestrial region of the earth's surface of interest to form said dataset, the method comprising the steps of:

• inputting data representing the street and road data input into a ray tracing algorithm along with a slice of the dataset around detected streets, the ray tracing algorithm finding curb and median points;
• and
• using heuristic associations or algorithms to stitch detected curb and median points into said curb and median data associated with said street grid.