A Streamlined Photometric Stereo Framework for Cultural Heritage

Abstract

In this paper, we propose a streamlined framework of robust 3D acquisition for cultural heritage using both photometric stereo and photogrammetric information. An uncalibrated photometric stereo setup is augmented by a synchronized secondary witness camera co-located with a point light source. By recovering the witness camera’s position for each exposure with photogrammetry techniques, we estimate the precise 3D location of the light source relative to the photometric stereo camera. We have shown a significant improvement in both light source position estimation and normal map recovery compared to previous uncalibrated photometric stereo techniques. In addition, with the new configuration we propose, we benefit from improved surface shape recovery by jointly incorporating corrected photometric stereo surface normals and a sparse 3D point cloud from photogrammetry.