UrbanMatch and AerialMatch - Image Matching Applications
UrbanMatch and AerialMatch are image-matching applications, built with the Diamond3D vision library. UrbanMatch is part of a proposed system that matches a live image of a building, taken with a cellphone camera, to a centralized database. GPS provides approximate cellphone location, and hence a small set of possible target images in the database, while image matching serves to identify a specific building. Finally augmentation data for the building (such as identity, prices and menus for shops and restaurants etc) is retrieved from the database and overlaid on the live image. The second application, AerialMatch, is for matching consecutive images in a sequence taken from a helicopter, to build a mosaic of the observed area on the ground. This is part of a proposed system that matches the current camera view from the helicopter to a geographical map of the area, again as a prerequisite for augmenting the live image.
Background & Objective: As image-matching becomes more reliable, augmentation of live imagery will be increasingly common. The goal of the Diamond3D library is to provide flexible software to support multiple applications.
Technical Discussion: Diamond3D is a geometry-based computer vision library supporting fast prototyping of vision applications. The functionality of the library includes camera calibration, feature detection and matching, and 3D reconstruction. Vision components in the library utilize a Model-View-Control design, allowing them to be treated as "black-boxes" which are easily re-used between applications. The image matching is based on detection and matching of corner points. The matching process first uses gradient-similarity around corners to determine multiple putative matches for each corner, then uses geometric constraints - the fundamental matrix and the planar homography - to identify the true matches.
Technology Area: Computer Vision
Modification Date: June 13, 2008