Optical Flow-Based Epipolar Estimation of Spherical Image Pairs for 3D Reconstruction

Stereo vision is a well-known technique for vision-based 3D reconstruction of environments. Recently developed spherical cameras can be used to extend the concept to all 360° and provide LIDAR-like 360 degree 3D data with color information. In order to perform accurate stereo disparity estim...

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Main Authors: Sarthak Pathak, Alessandro Moro, Atsushi Yamashita, Hajime Asama
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Taylor & Francis Group 2017-09-01
Series:SICE Journal of Control, Measurement, and System Integration
Subjects:
Online Access:http://dx.doi.org/10.9746/jcmsi.10.476
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author Sarthak Pathak
Alessandro Moro
Atsushi Yamashita
Hajime Asama
author_facet Sarthak Pathak
Alessandro Moro
Atsushi Yamashita
Hajime Asama
author_sort Sarthak Pathak
collection DOAJ
description Stereo vision is a well-known technique for vision-based 3D reconstruction of environments. Recently developed spherical cameras can be used to extend the concept to all 360° and provide LIDAR-like 360 degree 3D data with color information. In order to perform accurate stereo disparity estimation, the accurate relative pose between the two cameras, represented by the five degree of freedom epipolar geometry, needs to be known. However, it is always tedious to mechanically align and/or calibrate such systems. We propose a technique to recover the complete five degree of freedom parameters of the epipolar geometry in a single minimization with a dense approach involving all the individual pixel displacements (optical flow) between two camera views. Taking advantage of the spherical image geometry, a non-linear least squares optimization based on the dense optical flow directly minimizes the angles between pixel displacements and epipolar curves in order to align them. This approach is particularly suitable for dense 3D reconstruction as the pixel-to-pixel disparity between the two images can be calculated accurately and converted to a dense point cloud. Further, there are no assumptions about the direction of camera displacement. We demonstrate this method by showing some error evaluations, examples of successfully rectified spherical stereo pairs, and the dense 3D models generated from them.
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spelling doaj.art-a11c1081b115442b8add08d425c85aa72023-10-12T13:43:54ZengTaylor & Francis GroupSICE Journal of Control, Measurement, and System Integration1884-99702017-09-0110547648510.9746/jcmsi.10.47612103166Optical Flow-Based Epipolar Estimation of Spherical Image Pairs for 3D ReconstructionSarthak Pathak0Alessandro Moro1Atsushi Yamashita2Hajime Asama3Dept. of Precision Engineering, The University of TokyoDept. of Precision Engineering, The University of TokyoDept. of Precision Engineering, The University of TokyoDept. of Precision Engineering, The University of TokyoStereo vision is a well-known technique for vision-based 3D reconstruction of environments. Recently developed spherical cameras can be used to extend the concept to all 360° and provide LIDAR-like 360 degree 3D data with color information. In order to perform accurate stereo disparity estimation, the accurate relative pose between the two cameras, represented by the five degree of freedom epipolar geometry, needs to be known. However, it is always tedious to mechanically align and/or calibrate such systems. We propose a technique to recover the complete five degree of freedom parameters of the epipolar geometry in a single minimization with a dense approach involving all the individual pixel displacements (optical flow) between two camera views. Taking advantage of the spherical image geometry, a non-linear least squares optimization based on the dense optical flow directly minimizes the angles between pixel displacements and epipolar curves in order to align them. This approach is particularly suitable for dense 3D reconstruction as the pixel-to-pixel disparity between the two images can be calculated accurately and converted to a dense point cloud. Further, there are no assumptions about the direction of camera displacement. We demonstrate this method by showing some error evaluations, examples of successfully rectified spherical stereo pairs, and the dense 3D models generated from them.http://dx.doi.org/10.9746/jcmsi.10.476stereo visionspherical camera3d reconstruction
spellingShingle Sarthak Pathak
Alessandro Moro
Atsushi Yamashita
Hajime Asama
Optical Flow-Based Epipolar Estimation of Spherical Image Pairs for 3D Reconstruction
SICE Journal of Control, Measurement, and System Integration
stereo vision
spherical camera
3d reconstruction
title Optical Flow-Based Epipolar Estimation of Spherical Image Pairs for 3D Reconstruction
title_full Optical Flow-Based Epipolar Estimation of Spherical Image Pairs for 3D Reconstruction
title_fullStr Optical Flow-Based Epipolar Estimation of Spherical Image Pairs for 3D Reconstruction
title_full_unstemmed Optical Flow-Based Epipolar Estimation of Spherical Image Pairs for 3D Reconstruction
title_short Optical Flow-Based Epipolar Estimation of Spherical Image Pairs for 3D Reconstruction
title_sort optical flow based epipolar estimation of spherical image pairs for 3d reconstruction
topic stereo vision
spherical camera
3d reconstruction
url http://dx.doi.org/10.9746/jcmsi.10.476
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