Outlier percentage estimation for shape- And parameter-independent outlier detection

Accurate and robust three-dimensional reconstruction of objects allows for applications in many aspects of modern life. Yet, it typically suffers from outliers and noise which often need to be post-processed. Although many algorithms are able to effectively remove the outliers, most require a certain amount of manual tuning of the parameter(s) or to have a parameter(s) set based on the rule of thumb. New machine learning and artificial intelligence-based methods have also been introduced but may require vast parallel computing resources as well as training data. In the present study, a novel combinatory-distance-based method capable of high accuracy outlier detection named as the sorted distance divergence point (SDDP) is introduced. Results show that SDDP is able to achieve an average accuracy of 98% in outlier detection. Moreover, the introduced distance function and outlier percentage allow clear labelling of inliers and outliers cloud points. Therefore, SDDP presents an attractive enhancement to existing methods; namely, the manual parameter(s) tuning may not be necessary. The adaptability and utility of SDDP is further demonstrated by incorporating SDDP with current methods, to produce a high accuracy outlier detector. When tested with 17 objects with 20-50% outliers, attain F1 and F2 scores averaging 0.960 and 0.968, respectively.