Geometry and texture recovery of scenes of large scale

This paper presents a systematic approach to the problem of photorealistic 3-D model acquisition from the combination of range and image sensing. The input is a sequence of unregistered range scans of the scene and a sequence of unregistered 2-D photographs of the same scene. The output is a true texture-mapped geometric model of the scene. We believe that the developed modules are of vital importance for a flexible photorealistic 3-D model acquisition system. Segmentation algorithms simplify the dense datasets and provide stable features of interest which can be used for registration purposes. Solid modeling provides geometrically correct 3-D models. Finally, the automated range to an image registration algorithm can increase the flexibility of the system by decoupling the slow geometry recovery process from the image acquisition process the camera does not have to be precalibrated and rigidly attached to the range sensor. The system is comprehensive in that it addresses all phases of the modeling problem with a particular emphasis on automating the entire process interaction. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science (USA).