Improvement in Accuracy Through Self-Calibration for Panoramic Scanner Mohd Azwan Abbas, Halim Setan, Zulkepli Majid, Albert K. Chong, Derek D. Lichti and Khairulnizam M. Idris Abstract Currently, three-dimensional (3D) information has become a necessity for many purposes especially for documentation, management and analysis. With the rapid and dense 3D data (point clouds) and considerably at high accuracy has made terrestrial laser scanner (TLS) widely used for these purposes. However, similar to other 3D instruments, TLS measurements also cannot escape from the occurrence of various systematic errors. Through self-calibration, the significant systematic errors consisted in TLS can be modelled and subsequently removed to improve the accuracy of the data. To prove that statement, this study has performed self-calibration for panoramic scanner (Faro Photon 120) at a laboratory with dimensions of 15.5 m 9 9m 9 3 m. By employing optimal network configura- tion, all 138 well-distributed planar targets were measured from seven scanner positions to derive four calibration parameters. Statistical analysis (e.g. t test) has shown that only two parameters, the constant rangefinder offset error (9.3 mm) and the vertical circle index error (9.4 00 ) were significant for the calibrated scanner. To ensure that self-calibration can improve the accuracy of TLS data, photogrammetric technique was utilised to establish 15 3D test points at the calibration field. These test points were used to graphically and statistically demonstrate the improvement in accuracy between raw data and calibrated data of Faro Photon 120 scanner. Keywords Terrestrial laser scanner  Accuracy  Systematic errors  Self-calibration M. A. Abbas (&) Universiti Teknologi MARA, Shah Alam, Malaysia e-mail: mohdazwanabbas@yahoo.com H. Setan  Z. Majid  K. M. Idris Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Johor Bahru, Malaysia A. K. Chong University of Southern Queensland, Toowoomba, Australia D. D. Lichti University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada A. Abdul Rahman et al. (eds.), Geoinformation for Informed Decisions, Lecture Notes in Geoinformation and Cartography, DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-03644-1_15, Ó Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2014 201