Registration for 3-D point cloud using angular-invariant feature

This paper proposes an angular-invariant feature for 3-D registration procedure to perform reliable selection of point correspondence. The feature is a k-dimensional vector, and each element within the vector is an angle between the normal vector and one of its k nearest neighbors. The angular feature is invariant to scale and rotation transformation, and is applicable for the surface with small curvature. The feature improves the convergence and error without any assumptions about the initial transformation. Besides, no strict sampling strategy is required. Experiments illustrate that the proposed angular-based algorithm is more effective than iterative closest point (ICP) and the Curvature-based algorithm. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.