Spherical data validation of rock discontinuities orientation from Drone-derived 3D Point Clouds

This work presents a methodology for the statistical validation of discontinuity surfaces obtained from point clouds using digital photogrammetry from drones. Our methodology allows you to review the quality of the data obtained with photogrammetry and decide whether these measurements are representative of the discontinuity surfaces that they analyze. It consists of three steps, the first one being a shape analysis that allows defining which statistical model should be used: Fisher for circularly symmetric clusters or Bingham fits better for axially symmetric clusters. This step also makes the most significant difference to other works since our methodology starts from the premise that not all discontinuity surfaces are flat. Therefore, Fisher parameters do not allow validating data that do not correspond to a plane. In the second step of the methodology, we calculate the consistency parameters that depend on the statistical model defined in step 1. The parameters are similar for both models; both estimate κ which indicates how much the sample is concentrated around the mean orientation and validates the existence of this and which is the value of the generating angle of a cone with a 95 % confidence limit that it contains within the mean orientation. Finally, step 3 is used when there are control measurements to compare the point cloud data and define if both samples characterize the same discontinuity surface in the rock mass. The results obtained on a rock outcrop allowed us to observe that the measurements obtained from the drone faithfully represent the discontinuity surface analyzed when these were compared with the measurements made manually with the compass. Furthermore, the dispersion parameters (