3D reconstruction system based on incremental structure from motion using a camera with varying parameters

Abstract

In this paper, we present a flexible and fast system for multi-scale objects/scenes 3D reconstruction from uncalibrated images/video taken by a moving camera characterized by variable parameters. The proposed system is based on incremental structure from motion and good exploitation of bundle adjustment. At first, from two selected images, our system allows to recover, in a well-chosen reference, coordinates of a set of 3D points. In this context, we have proposed a new method of self-calibration based on the use of two unknown scene points with their image projections. After that, new images are inserted progressively using 3D information already obtained. Local bundle adjustment is used to adjust the new estimated entities. At some time, we introduce a global bundle adjustment to adjust as best as possible all estimated entities and to have an initial 3D model of quality covering an interesting part of the object/scene. This model will be used as reference for the insertion of the rest of images. The proposed system allows to obtain satisfactory results within a reasonable time.