RITK: The Range Imaging Toolkit - A Framework for 3-D Range Image Stream Processing

Abstract

The recent introduction of low-cost devices for real-time acquisition of dense 3-D range imaging (RI) streams has attracted a great deal of attention. However, to date, there exists no open source framework that is explicitly dedicated to real-time processing of RI streams. In this paper, we present the Range Imaging Toolkit (RITK). The goal is to provide a powerful yet intuitive software platform that facilitates the development of range image stream applications. RITK puts emphasis on real-time processing of range image streams and proposes the use of a dedicated pipeline mechanism. Furthermore, we introduce a powerful and convenient interface for range image processing on the graphics processing unit (GPU). Being designed thoroughly and in a generic manner, the toolkit is able to cope with the broad diversity of data streams provided by available RI devices and can easily be extended by custom range imaging sensors or processing modules. RITK is an open source project and will be made publicly available at http://www5.cs.fau.de/ritk.