1. A computer implemented method for simplification of a point cloud that represents one or more three-dimensional objects or surfaces, the point cloud comprising a set of points, the method comprising: implementing recursive spatial partitioning of the set of points into a hierarchy of clusters; for each cluster, calculating a tangent plane estimate for the points in the cluster and deriving a confidence factor for the calculated tangent plane estimate, wherein the confidence factor is a measure of the planarity of the points in the cluster; identifying representative points within each cluster in the hierarchy; and, for each representative point, defining a point-pair that consists of the representative point and a representative point of an immediate parent cluster; calculating a contraction error metric for each point-pair that is weighted by the inverse of the confidence factors calculated for the clusters associated with each representative point; and iteratively contracting the point-pair with the lowest contraction error metric, updating remaining point-pairs as a result of the contraction, and revising the contraction error metric of the updated point-pairs accordingly.