Influence of laser scanner range measurement noise on the quantification of rock surface roughness

The roughness of rock surfaces is traditionally measured by using manual tools such as carpenter's comp and compass and disc clinometers. The manual measurements are limited to small samples at accessible parts of the rock. Terrestrial laser scanning is an attractive alternative measurement technique, which offers large coverage, high resolution, and the ability to reach inaccessible high rock faces. The application of laser scanning to the study of rock surface roughness faces a major challenge: the inherent range imprecision hinders the quantification of roughness parameters. In practice, when roughness is in millimeter scale it is often lost in the range measurement noise. The parameters derived from the data, therefore, reflect noise rather than the actual roughness of the surface. In this paper, we investigate the influence of laser scanner range measurement noise on the quantification of rock surfaces roughness. We show that measurement noise leads to the overestimation of...