Extracting planar features from Kinect sensor

Abstract

An algorithm for finding planar features from a 3D point cloud by Kinect's depth sensor is described in this paper. The algorithm uses the explicit definition of a plane which allows storing only four parameters per plane rather than storing thousands of points. Extraction of multiple planes from the same set of points is prevented using a rejection mechanism. Parallelism is used for an average speed-up of 2.3:1. Details of the algorithm and results are given along with a discussion of how the calibration of the sensor affects the projections.