ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Analysis of the impact of TLS point cloud feature sets on the detection of building displacements using machine learning algorithms
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Faculty of Geodesy and Cartography, Warsaw University of Technology, Pl. Politechniki 1, 00-661 Warsaw, Poland
These authors had equal contribution to this work
A - Research concept and design; B - Collection and/or assembly of data; C - Data analysis and interpretation; D - Writing the article; E - Critical revision of the article; F - Final approval of article
Submission date: 2025-10-02
Final revision date: 2026-02-21
Acceptance date: 2026-03-20
Publication date: 2026-04-15
Corresponding author
Ewa Joanna Świerczyńska
Department of Engineering Geodesy and Measurement Systems, Warsaw University of Technology, Faculty of Geodesy and Cartography, Pl. Politechniki 1, 00-661, Warsaw, Poland
Reports on Geodesy and Geoinformatics 2026;121:19-42
KEYWORDS
TOPICS
ABSTRACT
The study addresses the problem of detecting displacements of building walls using terrestrial laser scanning (TLS) data and machine learning methods. Traditional displacement measurement techniques are often time-consuming. They are also limited in capturing the full geometry of monitored objects. In response, this research proposes a methodology based on the analysis of geometric and radiometric features extracted from point clouds. Controlled experiments were conducted with a geodetic rosette equipped with distance-measuring prisms, which were displaced in the XY plane by 4 mm, 9 mm, and 13 mm. Data were recorded with a Leica RTC360 scanner from three stations, yielding nine point clouds. Selected features describing differences between corresponding points in the reference and displaced series were used as input for neural network models. Both binary classification (displacement/non-displacement) and multi-class classification (0, 4, 9, 13 mm displacement) were performed. The results demonstrated high classification accuracy: 99.1% for binary models and 96.0% for multi-class models. Feature ranking revealed that geometric attributes, such as displacement vector length, curvature, and normal vectors, were the most relevant for model training, while color features had minor importance. The study confirmed that scanner position and incidence angle of the laser beam strongly affect classification quality. The developed procedure proved effective in detecting displacements that occur in directions parallel to the plane of building walls. The conclusions drawn from the research constitute a valuable contribution to the theory of monitoring building structures using TLS.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The presented material is part of research conducted as part of a master’s thesis entitled “Analysis of selected Machine Learning algorithms for investigating wall deformations in building structures based on point cloud” conducted at the Faculty of Geodesy and Cartography of the Warsaw University of Technology.
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