Three-dimensional reconstruction using homocentric spherical spatiotemporal image analysis

Abstract

This paper presents a new algorithm for reconstructing a scene of three-dimensional structures from an image sequence. Three-dimensional reconstruction using an image sequence, called the spatiotemporal image method, is robust against image noises. But in this method, camera motion is limited to only one direction translation. Our algorithm makes allowances for camera rotation in spatiotemporal image analysis. With this technique, the whole spatiotemporal image is transformed to spherical projection and three-dimensional structures are determined robustly using the Hough transformation. We call the technique Homocentric Spherical Spatiotemporal Image (HSSI) analysis. With HSSI, it is possible to distinguish objects with a rotating camera from a longer baseline and to measure them with much greater accuracy than previously possible. This algorithm is demonstrated through simulations and experiments with real images from a translating and rotating camera, and the three-dimensional structures in a static scene are reconstructed.