Multibeam data processing for 3D object shape reconstruction

The technology of hydroacoustic scanning offers an efficient and widely-used source of geospatial information regarding underwater environments, providing measurement data which usually have the structure of irregular groups of points known as point clouds. Since this data model has known disadvantages, a different form of representation based on representing surfaces with simple geometric structures, such as edges and facets, is preferred for data featuring seabed surface relief and various underwater objects. In this paper, the authors propose a multiple-step approach to three-dimensional surface reconstruction from multibeam sonar measurements, relying on the proper application of various algorithms for noise reduction, data rasterization and classification. The results obtained by combining several different surface reconstruction algorithms with the proposed data processing technique were tested, and the strengths and weaknesses of each method were highlighted.