{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,3,4]],"date-time":"2026-03-04T06:39:38Z","timestamp":1772606378987,"version":"3.50.1"},"reference-count":35,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"6","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2016,6,14]],"date-time":"2016-06-14T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1465862400000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["IJGI"],"abstract":"<jats:p>Automatic curb detection is an important issue in road maintenance, three-dimensional (3D) urban modeling, and autonomous navigation fields. This paper is focused on the segmentation of curbs and street boundaries using a 3D point cloud captured by a mobile laser scanner (MLS) system. Our method provides a solution based on the projection of the measured point cloud on the XY plane. Over that plane, a segmentation algorithm is carried out based on morphological operations to determine the location of street boundaries. In addition, a solution to extract curb edges based on the roughness of the point cloud is proposed. The proposed method is valid in both straight and curved road sections and applicable both to laser scanner and stereo vision 3D data due to the independence of its scanning geometry. The proposed method has been successfully tested with two datasets measured by different sensors. The first dataset corresponds to a point cloud measured by a TOPCON sensor in the Spanish town of Cudillero. The second dataset corresponds to a point cloud measured by a RIEGL sensor in the Austrian town of Horn. The extraction method provides completeness and correctness rates above 90% and quality values higher than 85% in both studied datasets.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/ijgi5060093","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2016,6,14]],"date-time":"2016-06-14T11:12:12Z","timestamp":1465902732000},"page":"93","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":25,"title":["Morphological Operations to Extract Urban Curbs in 3D MLS Point Clouds"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"5","author":[{"given":"Borja","family":"Rodr\u00edguez-Cuenca","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Physics and Mathematics, Alcal\u00e1 University, Campus Universitario Ctra. Madrid-Barcelona, km. 33,600, Alcal\u00e1 de Henares 28871, Spain"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-5695-1268","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Silverio","family":"Garc\u00eda-Cort\u00e9s","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Mining Exploitation and Prospecting, University of Oviedo, Escuela Polit\u00e9cnica de Mieres, C\/Gonzalo Guti\u00e9rrez Quir\u00f3s, Mieres 33600, Spain"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-6912-6299","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Celestino","family":"Ord\u00f3\u00f1ez","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Mining Exploitation and Prospecting, University of Oviedo, Escuela Polit\u00e9cnica de Mieres, C\/Gonzalo Guti\u00e9rrez Quir\u00f3s, Mieres 33600, Spain"}]},{"given":"Mar\u00eda","family":"Alonso","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Physics and Mathematics, Alcal\u00e1 University, Campus Universitario Ctra. Madrid-Barcelona, km. 33,600, Alcal\u00e1 de Henares 28871, Spain"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2016,6,14]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","first-page":"293","article-title":"Digital terrain models from airborne laserscanner data-a grid based approach","volume":"34","author":"Wack","year":"2002","journal-title":"Int. Arch. Photogramm. Remote Sens. Spat. Inf. Sci."},{"key":"ref_2","unstructured":"Rebecca, O., Gold, C., and Kidner, D. (2008). Advances in 3d Geoinformation Systems, Springer."},{"key":"ref_3","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"65","DOI":"10.1016\/S0198-9715(99)00047-2","article-title":"Extracting urban features from LiDAR digital surface models","volume":"24","author":"Priestnall","year":"2000","journal-title":"Comput. Environ. Urban Syst."},{"key":"ref_4","unstructured":"Schmidt, R., Weisser, H., Schulenberg, P., and Goellinger, H. (2000, January 3\u20135). Autonomous driving on vehicle test tracks: Overview, implementation and results. Proceedings of the IEEE Intelligent Vehicles Symposium, Dearborn, MI, USA."},{"key":"ref_5","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"425","DOI":"10.1002\/rob.20255","article-title":"Autonomous driving in urban environments: Boss and the urban challenge","volume":"25","author":"Urmson","year":"2008","journal-title":"J. Field Robot."},{"key":"ref_6","unstructured":"Ding, X., Kang, W., Cui, J., and Ao, L. (2006, January 19\u201321). Automatic extraction of road network from aerial images. Proceedings of the 1st International Symposium on Systems and Control in Aerospace and Astronautics, Harbin, China."},{"key":"ref_7","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Cheng, X.-J., Zhang, H.-F., and Xie, R. (2010, January 22\u201324). Study on 3d laser scanning modeling method for large-scale history building. Proceedings of the International Conference on Computer Application and System Modeling (ICCASM), Taiyuan, China.","DOI":"10.1109\/ICCASM.2010.5620631"},{"key":"ref_8","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Gonzalez-Aguilera, D., Muoz, A., Lahoz, J., Herrero, J., Corch\u00f3n, M., and Garcia, E. (2009, January 1\u20137). Recording and modeling paleolithic caves through laser scanning. Proceedings of the International Conference on Advanced Geographic Information Systems &, Web Services, Cancun, Mexico.","DOI":"10.1109\/GEOWS.2009.7"},{"key":"ref_9","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1","DOI":"10.1016\/j.autcon.2012.11.023","article-title":"Measurement planning for circular cross-section tunnels using terrestrial laser scanning","volume":"31","year":"2013","journal-title":"Autom. Constr."},{"key":"ref_10","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"47","DOI":"10.1016\/j.isprsjprs.2013.10.008","article-title":"An algorithm for automatic detection of pole-like street furniture objects from mobile laser scanner point clouds","volume":"87","author":"Cabo","year":"2014","journal-title":"ISPRS J. Photogramm. Remote Sens."},{"key":"ref_11","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Park, H., Lim, S., Trinder, J., and Turner, R. (2010, January 25\u201330). 3d surface reconstruction of terrestrial laser scanner data for forestry. Proceedings of the IEEE International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium (IGARSS), Honolulu, HI, USA.","DOI":"10.1109\/IGARSS.2010.5652550"},{"key":"ref_12","first-page":"W8","article-title":"Automatic extraction of vertical walls from mobile and airborne laser scanning data","volume":"38","author":"Rutzinger","year":"2009","journal-title":"Int. Arch. Photogramm. Remote Sens. Spat. Inf. Sci."},{"key":"ref_13","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"97","DOI":"10.1127\/1432-8364\/2011\/0075","article-title":"Feasibility of facade footprint extraction from mobile laser scanning data","volume":"2011","author":"Rutzinger","year":"2011","journal-title":"Photogramm. Fernerkund. Geoinform."},{"key":"ref_14","first-page":"65","article-title":"Extracting building footprints from 3d point clouds using terrestrial laser scanning at street level","volume":"38","author":"Hammoudi","year":"2009","journal-title":"ISPRS\/CMRT09"},{"key":"ref_15","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1374","DOI":"10.1109\/TGRS.2014.2338915","article-title":"Semiautomated extraction of street light poles from mobile LiDAR point-clouds","volume":"53","author":"Yongtao","year":"2015","journal-title":"IEEE Trans. Geosci. Remote Sens."},{"key":"ref_16","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"12680","DOI":"10.3390\/rs71012680","article-title":"Automatic detection and classification of pole-like objects in urban point cloud data using an anomaly detection algorithm","volume":"7","author":"Alonso","year":"2015","journal-title":"Remote Sens."},{"key":"ref_17","unstructured":"Douillard, B., Underwood, J., Vlaskine, V., Quadros, A., and Singh, S. (2014). Experimental Robotics, Springer."},{"key":"ref_18","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Ioannou, Y., Taati, B., Harrap, R., and Greenspan, M. (2012, January 13\u201315). Difference of normals as a multi-scale operator in unorganized point clouds. Proceedings of the 2012 Second International Conference on 3D Imaging, Modeling, Processing, Visualization and Transmission (3DIMPVT), Zurich, Switzerland.","DOI":"10.1109\/3DIMPVT.2012.12"},{"key":"ref_19","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"80","DOI":"10.1016\/j.isprsjprs.2013.01.016","article-title":"Semi-automated extraction and delineation of 3d roads of street scene from mobile laser scanning point clouds","volume":"79","author":"Yang","year":"2013","journal-title":"ISPRS J. Photogramm. Remote Sens."},{"key":"ref_20","unstructured":"Hu, H., Munoz, D., Bagnell, J.A., and Hebert, M. (2013, January 6\u201310). Efficient 3-d scene analysis from streaming data. Proceedings of the 2013 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), Karlsruhe, Germany."},{"key":"ref_21","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"721","DOI":"10.1007\/s00138-010-0307-7","article-title":"Lane detection and tracking using a new lane model and distance transform","volume":"22","author":"Ruyi","year":"2011","journal-title":"Mach. Vis. Appl."},{"key":"ref_22","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Labayrade, R., Douret, J., and Aubert, D. (2006, January 17\u201320). A multi-model lane detector that handles road singularities. Proceedings of the 2006 IEEE Intelligent Transportation Systems Conference, Toronto, ON, Canada.","DOI":"10.1109\/ITSC.2006.1707376"},{"key":"ref_23","unstructured":"Zhao, G., and Yuan, J. (October, January 30). Curb detection and tracking using 3d-LiDAR scanner. Proceedings of the 19th IEEE International Conference on Image Processing (ICIP), Orlando, FL, USA."},{"key":"ref_24","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Weiss, T., and Dietmayer, K. (2007, January 13\u201315). Automatic detection of traffic infrastructure objects for the rapid generation of detailed digital maps using laser scanners. Proceedings of the IEEE Intelligent Vehicles Symposium, Istanbul, Turkey.","DOI":"10.1109\/IVS.2007.4290293"},{"key":"ref_25","first-page":"74","article-title":"Automating post-processing of terrestrial laser scanning point clouds for road feature surveys","volume":"38","author":"Belton","year":"2010","journal-title":"Int. Arch. Photogramm. Remote Sens. Spat. Inf. Sci."},{"key":"ref_26","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Hervieu, A., and Soheilian, B. (2013). Semi-automatic road\/pavement modeling using mobile laser scanning. City ISPRS Ann. Photogramm. Remote Sens. Spat. Inf. Sci., 2.","DOI":"10.5194\/isprsannals-II-3-W3-31-2013"},{"key":"ref_27","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"44","DOI":"10.1016\/j.isprsjprs.2013.08.003","article-title":"An automated algorithm for extracting road edges from terrestrial mobile LiDAR data","volume":"85","author":"Kumar","year":"2013","journal-title":"ISPRS J. Photogramm. Remote Sens."},{"key":"ref_28","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"23","DOI":"10.1016\/j.isprsjprs.2013.07.001","article-title":"Urban accessibility diagnosis from mobile laser scanning data","volume":"84","author":"Serna","year":"2013","journal-title":"ISPRS J. Photogramm. Remote Sens."},{"key":"ref_29","unstructured":"Trident Trimble Software. Available online: http:\/\/kmcgeo.com\/Products\/Trident\/Trident_Feature_Table.pdf."},{"key":"ref_30","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"641","DOI":"10.3390\/rs2030641","article-title":"Detection of vertical pole-like objects in a road environment using vehicle-based laser scanning data","volume":"2","author":"Jaakkola","year":"2010","journal-title":"Remote Sens."},{"key":"ref_31","unstructured":"Gonzalez, R.C., and Woods, R.E. (2002). Digital Image Processing, Prentice Hall."},{"key":"ref_32","unstructured":"Cloudcompare Wiki Main Page. Available online: http:\/\/www.cloudcompare.org\/doc\/wiki\/index.php?title=Main_Page."},{"key":"ref_33","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"145","DOI":"10.1016\/j.isprsjprs.2013.12.002","article-title":"Ground and building extraction from LiDAR data based on differential morphological profiles and locally fitted surfaces","volume":"93","author":"Mongus","year":"2014","journal-title":"ISPRS J. Photogramm. Remote Sens."},{"key":"ref_34","first-page":"151","article-title":"Evaluation of automatic road extraction","volume":"32","author":"Heipke","year":"1997","journal-title":"Int. Arch. Photogramm. Remote Sens."},{"key":"ref_35","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"4144","DOI":"10.1109\/TGRS.2007.906107","article-title":"Road network extraction and intersection detection from aerial images by tracking road footprints","volume":"45","author":"Hu","year":"2007","journal-title":"IEEE Trans. Geosci. Remote Sens."}],"container-title":["ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information"],"original-title":[],"language":"en","link":[{"URL":"https:\/\/www.mdpi.com\/2220-9964\/5\/6\/93\/pdf","content-type":"unspecified","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"similarity-checking"}],"deposited":{"date-parts":[[2025,10,11]],"date-time":"2025-10-11T19:25:25Z","timestamp":1760210725000},"score":1,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"https:\/\/www.mdpi.com\/2220-9964\/5\/6\/93"}},"subtitle":[],"short-title":[],"issued":{"date-parts":[[2016,6,14]]},"references-count":35,"journal-issue":{"issue":"6","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2016,6]]}},"alternative-id":["ijgi5060093"],"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/ijgi5060093","relation":{},"ISSN":["2220-9964"],"issn-type":[{"value":"2220-9964","type":"electronic"}],"subject":[],"published":{"date-parts":[[2016,6,14]]}}}