Research Seminar - October 08, 1999

Abstract

The talk informs about solutions in computer vision which are of use for image-based systems in information technology. Several components for image-based visualisation of 3D environments and objects have been developed at The University of Auckland within an "Interactive Explorer" project. The talk

• introduces briefly the general intentions of the "Interactive Explorer" and shows one system example containing maps and panoramic videos,
• points out that 3D terrain modelling may be incorporated based on computational stereo (dynamic programming solution for binocular stereo) and that these 3D models may be transmitted (say, via the Internet) in incremental encoding schemes,
• shows new components of panoramic 3D environment or object visualisations such as the panoramic anaglyph technique, independent objects, or automated generation of stereo object movies based on monocular object movies,
• illustrates the state-of-the-art in shape recovery which provides useful tools for object visualisation (3S PSM, structured lighting, shape from silhouettes).

The discussed image-based rendering or visualisation approaches belong to the field of multi-view computer vision which is already well-known by commercial products such as panoramic or object movies and anaglyph techniques. However, the talk illustrates new ways of combining research results in computer vision for the creation of large-scale information systems.