3D Laser Scanners and Point Clouds for Obtaining Car Accident Sketches

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to compare classical police work and state-of-the-art technology regarding traffic accident scene investigation. The questions addressed are how can modern technology reduce accident data collection time and if the data collected are of the same quality? A car accident involving two cars and a motorcycle was simulated on the safety polygon Ljubecna, Slovenia. In the simulation, the motorcycle driver was fatally injured, and a team of two police officers made a classical police traffic accident scene investigation using coloured spray paint and a handheld measuring tape. A simple handheld GeoSlam Zeb Revo 3D scanner and sophisticated Riegl VZ-400i 3D laser scanner were also used for data collection and the distance measurements were then compared. The paper compares these three techniques and for obtaining an accident sketch. From this research, it can be concluded that in some straightforward examples, automated data collection is accurate enough for further data analysis. Furthermore, automated techniques are much faster than the classical data collection approach.