Estimation of the ground plane of a three dimensional (3D) point cloud based modifications to the random sample consensus (RANSAC) algorithm is provided. The modifications may include applying roll and pitch constraints to the selection of random planes in the 3D point cloud, using a cost function based on the number of inliers in the random plane and the number of 3D points below the random plane in the 3D point cloud, and computing a distance threshold for the 3D point cloud that is used in determining whether or not a 3D point in the 3D point cloud is an inlier of a random plane.