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Automatic 3D Reconstruction of Scenes

Posted by Hemos on from the its-like-that-there-tv dept.

Neil Halelamien writes "New Scientist reports on a piece of software by MDRobotics called instant Scene modeler (iSM), which automatically generates 3D reconstructions of scenes, using a few hundred frames from a pair of ordinary video cameras. The software uses David Lowe's SIFT vision algorithm to quickly locate common features between sequential images, for use in the reconstruction; SIFT has also been useful for generating panoramas and object recognition. MDRobotics has a demo page showing the software being used for crime scene reconstruction, along with animated GIFs of input video and the resulting 3D model."

3 of 136 comments (clear)

  1. Coral Cache by PxM · · Score: 4, Informative

    Since slashdot will probably burn out the web server hosting images: http://www.mdrobotics.ca.nyud.net:8090/ism/behind. htm

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  2. Damn patents. by PxM · · Score: 4, Informative

    From one of the links: The SIFT algorithm is restricted by patents in the United States and hence this software is not completely free to use. For details see the LICENSE file included in the distribution, before you start to use this software.

    Hopefully, they're liberal about the patent and will let noncommercial nonresearch applications use the algorithm. Otherwise, we would have to wait for the really interesting software to come out.

    A C# implementation with support for Mono is available to play with for anyone who is interested: http://user.cs.tu-berlin.de/~nowozin/libsift/
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  3. Re:open source implementation? by imroy · · Score: 4, Informative

    Autopano and Autopano-sift. I have't had good experiences with the SIFT-based software. They always tend to pick the most inappropriate points, like trees/leaves (that move between shots) and the middle of objects (where there aren't many features). I almost always have to go through and remove the bad points, adding in my own reliable ones (corners, unique features, etc). I just don't use them anymore because I actually spend less time if I do all the points myself manually. The GUI of Hugin usually saves me plenty of time already. It does a good job of picking the matching point when I click on one photo. That's all I need anymore.