<type> pcfilter(int handle, string channel_name, ...)
Filters the points queued up by pcopen using a simple reconstruction filter.
This function is roughly equivalent to:
float pcfilter(int handle; string channel)
{
float sum, w, d;
float value, result = 0;
while (pciterate(handle))
{
pcimport(handle, "point.distance", d);
pcimport(handle, channel, value);
w = 1 - smooth(0, radius, d);
sum += w;
result += w * value;
}
result /= sum;
return result;
}
pcfilter takes the points that were opened by the point cloud and produces a filtered value. The following equation shows how the individual points are weighted.
w_i = 1-smooth(0, maxd*1.1, d_i);
maxd is the farthest point, and w_i is the weight for a given point at distance (d_i). Points that are closer to the center will be weighted higher with that formula, rather than it being an average.