Usage of HELIOS for various applications

The Heidelberg LiDAR Operations Simulator (HELIOS) is an open source laser scanning simulation framework for interactive simulation and visualization of terrestrial, mobile and airborne laser scanning surveys. It can be flexibly used for teaching and training of laser scanning, development of new scanner hardware and scanning methods, or generation of artificial scan data sets to support the development of point cloud processing and analysis algorithms.

Due to its high flexibility it has already been used by the 3DGeo Research Group and other research groups for different studies and applications:

Validation of leaf angle distribution quantification

Liu, J., Skidmore, A.K., Wang, T., Zhu, X., Premier, J., Heurich, M., Beudert, B. & Jones, S. (2019): Variation of leaf angle distribution quantified by terrestrial LiDAR in natural European beech forest. In: ISPRS Journal of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing, 148, pp. 208-220. DOI: 10.1016/j.isprsjprs.2019.01.005.

Evaluation of point cloud quality requirements for Scan-vs-BIM based automated construction progress monitoring

Rebolj, D., Pučko, Z., Babič, N.Č., Bizjak, M. & Mongus, D. (2017). Point cloud quality requirements for Scan-vs-BIM based automated construction progress monitoring. In: Automation in Construction, 84, pp. 323-334. DOI: 10.1016/j.autcon.2017.09.021.

Understory forest structure modelling

Hämmerle, M., Lukač, N., Chen, K.-C., Koma, Zs., Wang, C.-K., Anders, K., & Höfle, B. (2017): Simulating Various Terrestrial and UAV LiDAR Scanning Configurations for Understory Forest Structure Modelling. In: ISPRS Ann. Photogramm. Remote Sens. Spatial Inf. Sci., IV-2/W4, pp. 59-65. DOI: 10.5194/isprs-annals-IV-2-W4-59-2017.

Simulation of full-waveform laser scanning of outcrops for the development of point cloud analysis algorithms and survey planning

Bechtold, S., Hämmerle, M. & Höfle, B. (2016): Simulated full-waveform laser scanning of outcrops for development of point cloud analysis algorithms and survey planning: An application for the HELIOS lidar simulation framework. In: Proceedings of the 2nd Virtual Geoscience Conference, Bergen, Norway, 21-23 September 2016, pp. 57-58.

If you are interested in using HELIOS for your application and research, you can download a pre-compiled latest version of HELIOS here. The corresponding wiki contains detailed information on how to set up and handle HELIOS.

Missing features in HELIOS? Why not contribute to the project on GitHub – join as developer or submit “issues” you encounter!