Abstract
The rigid motion involving both rotation and translation in the 3D space can be simultaneously described by a unit dual quaternion. Considering this excellent property, the paper constructs the Helmert transformation (seven-parameter similarity transformation) model based on a unit dual quaternion and then presents a rigid iterative algorithm of Helmert transformation using a unit dual quaternion. Because of the singularity of the coefficient matrix of the normal equation, the nine parameter (including one scale factor and eight parameters of a dual quaternion) Helmert transformation model is reduced into five parameter (including one scale factor and four parameters of a unit quaternion which can represent the rotation matrix) Helmert transformation one. Besides, a good start estimate of parameter is required for the iterative algorithm, hence another algorithm employed to compute the initial value of parameter is put forward. The numerical experiments involving a case of small rotation angles i.e. geodetic coordinate transformation and a case of big rotation angles i.e. the registration of LIDAR points are studied. The results show the presented algorithms in this paper are correct and valid for the two cases, disregarding the rotation angles are big or small. And the accuracy of computed parameter is comparable to the classic Procrustes algorithm from Grafarend and Awange (J Geod 77:66–76, 2003), the orthonormal matrix algorithm from Zeng (Earth Planets Space 67:105, 2015), and the algorithm from Wang et al. (J Photogramm Remote Sens 94:63–69, 2014).
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Acknowledgements
The study is supported jointly by the Open Foundation of National Field Observation and Research Station of Landslides in the Three Gorges Reservoir Area of Yangtze River, China Three Gorges University (Grant No. 2018KTL14), the 2015 Open Foundation of Hubei Key Laboratory of Intelligent Vision Based Monitoring for Hydroelectric Engineering, China Three Gorges University (Grant No. 2015KLA06), Hubei Provincial Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 2016CFB443), the Open Foundation of Hubei Key Laboratory of Construction and Management in Hydropower Engineering, China Three Gorges University, the Open Foundation of the Key Laboratory of Precise Engineering and Industry Surveying, National Administration of Surveying, Mapping and Geoinformation of China, and National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 41401526, 41774005, 41104009). The first author thanks two anonymous reviewers for valuable comments and suggestions, which enhanced the quality of this manuscript.
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Appendices
Appendix 1: The relationship between \({\mathbf{R}}\) and three rotation angles
Assume \({\mathbf{R}}\) is depicted by rotating angles (Eulerian angles) \(\theta_{x}\), \(\theta_{y}\), \(\theta_{z}\) counterclockwise about the X, Y and Z axes respectively, then \({\mathbf{R}}\) is expressed by rotation angles as
Reversely if the rotation matrix \({\mathbf{R}}\) is given, the rotation angles \(\theta_{x}\), \(\theta_{y}\), \(\theta_{z}\) can be computed by Eq. (3) as
where \(R_{ij}\) is the element of \({\mathbf{R}}\) in the i-th row and j-th column.
Appendix 2: Partial derivatives of \({\mathbf{W}}(\varvec{r})^{T}\), \(Q(\varvec{r})\), \(\varvec{r}\) with respect to \(r_{1}\), \(r_{2}\), \(r_{3}\), \(r_{4}\) respectively
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Zeng, H., Chang, G., He, H. et al. Iterative solution of Helmert transformation based on a unit dual quaternion. Acta Geod Geophys 54, 123–141 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40328-018-0241-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40328-018-0241-0