Nosetip finder

This is part of my undergraduate thesis, an algorithm to find nose tips in point cloud images. Check also the web viewer repository to see the web application used to explore point cloud images (.pcd) and intermediary results of this algorithm.

Dependencies

To run this project you will need:

Point Cloud Library
CMake to build the output.

If you intend to generate the .node file, you will also need:

Node 10 (I recommend using nvm since this is a old node version).
CMake.js to build using cmake.

Building

Regular C++ output

Now that you have installed Point Cloud Library and CMake, just get into cmd/regular:

ls cmd/regular

and build with cmake:

ccmake .
make

The executable output file nosetip_finder can be found inside of cmd/regular/build folder.

To use with Node.js

You may want to use this algorithm with a web application, like I did in this repository. A way to do this is generating the .node build, to use as a dependency in Node.js code.

As mencioned earlier, you will need Node.js 10. If you are using nvm, you can set Node version to 10 by running:

nvm install 10.23.0
nvm use 10

Note that this will set your Node version only in the current terminal.

After that, install cmake-js globally with:

npm install -g cmake-js

Now, go into cmd/nan-module:

ls cmd/nan-module

And run:

npm run install

This will install any necessary dependencies and compile the code with cmake-js.

The output file nosetip_finder.node can be found inside of cmd/nan-module/build/Release folder.

Parameters

For executing the algorithm, you need to provide this set of parameters (in this order):

1 - Input filename - STRING
2 - Flexibilize thresholds - BOOLEAN
3 - Flexibilize crop - BOOLEAN
4 - Normal estimation size (radius size or k value) - INTEGER
5 - Normal estimation method - radius or k (as string)
6 - Minimum threshold of Gaussian Curvature - DOUBLE
7 - Maximum threshold of Shape Index - DOUBLE (between -1 and +1)
8 - Minimum crop size - FLOAT
9 - Maximum crop size - FLOAT
10 - Minimum points to continue - INTEGER
11 - Removal radius of isolated points - FLOAT
12 - Threshold of points count of isolated points - INTEGER
13 - Search radius of nose tip - INTEGER

If using regular C++ build, pass this parameters inline, like:

[project_path]/cmd/regular/build/nosetip_finder parameter1 parameter2 parameter3 [...]

If using .node dependency, pass this parameters like a regular function call:

const nosetip_finder = require('[path to nosetip_finder.node]');

const response = nosetip_finder.findNoseTip(
          parameter1,
          parameter2,
          parameter3,
          [...]
        );

Regular C++ output exclusive parameters

If you are using the regular C++ build, you can use some other parameters. Note that, considering the order, these parameters should be set after the parameters listed on the last section.

Note that the only optional parameter is the 16. All the others are required.

Exclusive parameters for C++ regular build (in this order):

14 - Ouput file to save the nosetip as a .pcd file - STRING
15 - Definition if you want to visualize the final and the intermediary results - Set this parameter as visualizar if you want to visualize or set as any other string if you do not want to visualize the results.
16 - A file with a known nosetip to verify if the algorithm result is a good nosetip - STRING
17 - A CSV file to save the processing results (analyzed cloud, if the result is a good nosetip, execution time, known nosetip and the nosetip found) - STRING
18 - A CSV file where eventual errors will be written - STRING

Obs: If you don't pass the parameter 16 and parameter 15 is set as visualizar, you will be prompted by the terminal to input if the result is a good nosetip or not.