Determination of Terrain Features in a Terrain Model from Laser Radar Data

Determination of terrain data features in a high resolution terrain data model are required in a large variety of applications where visualization is an important aspect. This is a complex problem because a terrain model is generally a mapping of the reality into a continuous 3D surface model of arbitrary shape, requiring an extremely large amount of data especially when a high resolution is required. Data from such a terrain data model need to be efficiently stored, maintained and visualized. Furthermore reduction of the stored data without loss of relevant information is required. In this work a terrain model that allows the determination of various terrain features through symbolic filters is proposed. The filters are compositions of symbolic surface elements. It will be demonstrated how these filters can be used to obtain objects and object features for visualization and other purposes.