Surface normal computation on noisy sample of points

Abstract

Various technologies described herein pertain to computing surface normals for points in a point cloud. The point cloud is representative of a measured surface of a physical object. A point in the point cloud can be set as a point of origin, and points in the point cloud can be modeled as electrostatic point charges. Moreover, a point of least electrostatic potential on a sphere centered at the point of origin can be computed as a function of the electrostatic point charges. Further, unit vector with a direction from the point of origin to the point of least electrostatic potential on the sphere can be assigned as a normal for the point of origin.