ICPR2020 Paper Browser

Paper download is intended for registered attendees only, and is subjected to the IEEE Copyright Policy. Any other use is strongly forbidden.

A Two-Step Approach to Lidar-Camera Calibration

Yingna Su, Yaqing Ding, Jian Yang, Hui Kong

Auto-TLDR; Closed-Form Calibration of Lidar-camera System for Ego-motion Estimation and Scene Understanding

Abstract Slides Poster

Autonomous vehicles and robots are typically equipped with Lidar and camera. Hence, calibrating the Lidar-camera system is of extreme importance for ego-motion estimation and scene understanding. In this paper, we propose a two-step approach (coarse + fine) for the external calibration between a camera and a multiple-line Lidar. First, a new closed-form solution is proposed to obtain the initial calibration parameters. We compare our solution with the state-of-the-art SVD-based algorithm, and show the benefits of both the efficiency and stability. With the initial calibration parameters, the ICP-based calibration framework is used to register the point clouds which extracted from the camera and Lidar coordinate frames, respectively. Our method has been applied to two Lidar-camera systems: an HDL-64E Lidar-camera system, and a VLP-16 Lidar-camera system. Experimental results demonstrate that our method achieves promising performance and higher accuracy than two open-source methods.

Similar papers

NetCalib: A Novel Approach for LiDAR-Camera Auto-Calibration Based on Deep Learning

Shan Wu, Amnir Hadachi, Damien Vivet, Yadu Prabhakar

Auto-TLDR; Automatic Calibration of LiDAR and Cameras using Deep Neural Network

Abstract Slides Poster Similar

A fusion of LiDAR and cameras have been widely used in many robotics applications such as classification, segmentation, object detection, and autonomous driving. It is essential that the LiDAR sensor can measure distances accurately, which is a good complement to the cameras. Hence, calibrating sensors before deployment is a mandatory step. The conventional methods include checkerboards, specific patterns, or human labeling, which is trivial and human-labor extensive if we do the same calibration process every time. The main propose of this research work is to build a deep neural network that is capable of automatically finding the geometric transformation between LiDAR and cameras. The results show that our model manages to find the transformations from randomly sampled artificial errors. Besides, our work is open-sourced for the community to fully utilize the advances of the methodology for developing more the approach, initiating collaboration, and innovation in the topic.

A Plane-Based Approach for Indoor Point Clouds Registration

Ketty Favre, Muriel Pressigout, Luce Morin, Eric Marchand

Auto-TLDR; A plane-based registration approach for indoor environments based on LiDAR data

Abstract Slides Poster Similar

Iterative Closest Point (ICP) is one of the mostly used algorithms for 3D point clouds registration. This classical approach can be impacted by the large number of points contained in a point cloud. Planar structures, which are less numerous than points, can be used in well-structured man-made environment. In this paper we propose a registration method inspired by the ICP algorithm in a plane-based registration approach for indoor environments. This method is based solely on data acquired with a LiDAR sensor. A new metric based on plane characteristics is introduced to find the best plane correspondences. The optimal transformation is estimated through a two-step minimization approach, successively performing robust plane-to-plane minimization and non-linear robust point-to-plane registration. Experiments on the Autonomous Systems Lab (ASL) dataset show that the proposed method enables to successfully register 100% of the scans from the three indoor sequences. Experiments also show that the proposed method is more robust in large motion scenarios than other state-of-the-art algorithms.

Minimal Solvers for Indoor UAV Positioning

Marcus Valtonen Örnhag, Patrik Persson, Mårten Wadenbäck, Kalle Åström, Anders Heyden

Auto-TLDR; Relative Pose Solvers for Visual Indoor UAV Navigation

Abstract Slides Poster Similar

In this paper we consider a collection of relative pose problems which arise naturally in applications for visual indoor UAV navigation. We focus on cases where additional information from an onboard IMU is available and thus provides a partial extrinsic calibration through the gravitational vector. The solvers are designed for a partially calibrated camera, for a variety of realistic indoor scenarios, which makes it possible to navigate using images of the ground floor. Current state-of-the-art solvers use more general assumptions, such as using arbitrary planar structures; however, these solvers do not yield adequate reconstructions for real scenes, nor do they perform fast enough to be incorporated in real-time systems. We show that the proposed solvers enjoy better numerical stability, are faster, and require fewer point correspondences, compared to state-of-the-art solvers. These properties are vital components for robust navigation in real-time systems, and we demonstrate on both synthetic and real data that our method outperforms other methods, and yields superior motion estimation.

Camera Calibration Using Parallel Line Segments

Gaku Nakano

Auto-TLDR; Closed-Form Calibration of Surveillance Cameras using Parallel 3D Line Segment Projections

Abstract Slides Poster Similar

This paper proposes a camera calibration method suitable for surveillance cameras using the image projection of parallel 3D line segments of the same length. We assume that vertical line segments are perpendicular to the ground plane and their bottom end-points are on the ground plane. Under this assumption, the camera parameters can be directly solved by at least two line segments without estimating vanishing points. Extending the minimal solution, we derive a closed-form solution to the least squares case with more than two line segments. Lens distortion is jointly optimized in bundle adjustment. Synthetic data evaluation shows that the best depression angle of a camera is around 50 degrees. In real data evaluation, we use body joints of pedestrians as vertical line segments. The experimental results on publicly available datasets show that the proposed method with a human pose detector can correctly calibrate wide-angle cameras including radial distortion.

A Globally Optimal Method for the PnP Problem with MRP Rotation Parameterization

Manolis Lourakis, George Terzakis

Auto-TLDR; A Direct least squares, algebraic PnP solver with modified Rodrigues parameters

Abstract Poster Similar

The perspective-n-point (PnP) problem is of fundamental importance in computer vision. A global optimality condition for PnP that is independent of a particular rotation parameterization was recently developed by Nakano. This paper puts forward a direct least squares, algebraic PnP solution that extends Nakano's work by combining his optimality condition with the modified Rodrigues parameters (MRPs) for parameterizing rotation. The result is a system of polynomials that is solved using the Groebner basis approach. An MRP vector has twice the rotational range of the classical Rodrigues (i.e., Cayley) vector used by Nakano to represent rotation. The proposed solver provides strong guarantees that the full rotation singularity associated with MRPs is avoided. Furthermore, detailed experiments provide evidence that our solver attains accuracy that is indistinguishable from Nakano's Cayley-based solution with a moderate increase in computational cost.

Extending Single Beam Lidar to Full Resolution by Fusing with Single Image Depth Estimation

Yawen Lu, Yuxing Wang, Devarth Parikh, Guoyu Lu

Auto-TLDR; Self-supervised LIDAR for Low-Cost Depth Estimation

Abstract Slides Similar

Depth estimation is playing an important role in indoor and outdoor scene understanding, autonomous driving, augmented reality and many other tasks. Vehicles and robotics are able to use active illumination sensors such as LIDAR to receive high precision depth estimation. However, high-resolution Lidars are usually too expensive, which limits its massive production on various applications. Though single beam LIDAR enjoys the benefits of low cost, one beam depth sensing is not usually sufficient to perceive the surrounding environment in many scenarios. In this paper, we propose a learning-based framework to explore to replicate similar or even higher performance as costly LIDARs with our designed self-supervised network and a low-cost single-beam LIDAR. After the accurate calibration with a visible camera, the single beam LIDAR can adjust the scale uncertainty of the depth map estimated by the visible camera. The adjusted depth map enjoys the benefits of high resolution and sensing accuracy as high beam LIDAR and maintains low-cost as single beam LIDAR. Thus we can achieve similar sensing effect of high beam LIDAR with more than a 50-100 times cheaper price (e.g., \$80000 Velodyne HDL-64E LIDAR v.s. \$1000 SICK TIM-781 2D LIDAR and normal camera). The proposed approach is verified on our collected dataset and public dataset with superior depth-sensing performance.

Computing Stable Resultant-Based Minimal Solvers by Hiding a Variable

Snehal Bhayani, Zuzana Kukelova, Janne Heikkilä

Auto-TLDR; Sparse Permian-Based Method for Solving Minimal Systems of Polynomial Equations

Abstract Slides Similar

Many computer vision applications require robust and efficient estimation of camera geometry. The robust estimation is usually based on solving camera geometry problems from a minimal number of input data measurements, i.e., solving minimal problems, in a RANSAC-style framework. Minimal problems often result in complex systems of polynomial equations. The existing state-of-the-art methods for solving such systems are either based on Groebner Basis and the action matrix method, which have been extensively studied and optimized in the recent years or recently proposed approach based on a resultant computation using an extra variable. In this paper, we study an interesting alternative resultant-based method for solving sparse systems of polynomial equations by hiding one variable. This approach results in a larger eigenvalue problem than the action matrix and extra variable resultant-based methods; however, it does not need to compute an inverse or elimination of large matrices that may be numerically unstable. The proposed approach includes several improvements to the standard sparse resultant algorithms, which significantly improves the efficiency and stability of the hidden variable resultant-based solvers as we demonstrate on several interesting computer vision problems. We show that for the studied problems, our sparse resultant based approach leads to more stable solvers than the state-of-the-art Groebner Basis as well as existing resultant-based solvers, especially in close to critical configurations. Our new method can be fully automated and incorporated into existing tools for the automatic generation of efficient minimal solvers.

RISEdb: A Novel Indoor Localization Dataset

Carlos Sanchez Belenguer, Erik Wolfart, Álvaro Casado Coscollá, Vitor Sequeira

Auto-TLDR; Indoor Localization Using LiDAR SLAM and Smartphones: A Benchmarking Dataset

Abstract Slides Poster Similar

In this paper we introduce a novel public dataset for developing and benchmarking indoor localization systems. We have selected and 3D mapped a set of representative indoor environments including a large office building, a conference room, a workshop, an exhibition area and a restaurant. Our acquisition pipeline is based on a portable LiDAR SLAM backpack to map the buildings and to accurately track the pose of the user as it moves freely inside them. We introduce the calibration procedures that enable us to acquire and geo-reference live data coming from different independent sensors rigidly attached to the backpack. This has allowed us to collect long sequences of spherical and stereo images, together with all the sensor readings coming from a consumer smartphone and locate them inside the map with centimetre accuracy. The dataset addresses many of the limitations of existing indoor localization datasets regarding the scale and diversity of the mapped buildings; the number of acquired sequences under varying conditions; the accuracy of the ground-truth trajectory; the availability of a detailed 3D model and the availability of different sensor types. It enables the benchmarking of existing and the development of new indoor localization approaches, in particular for deep learning based systems that require large amounts of labeled training data.

Calibration and Absolute Pose Estimation of Trinocular Linear Camera Array for Smart City Applications

Martin Ahrnbom, Mikael Nilsson, Håkan Ardö, Kalle Åström, Oksana Yastremska-Kravchenko, Aliaksei Laureshyn

Auto-TLDR; Trinocular Linear Camera Array Calibration for Traffic Surveillance Applications

Abstract Slides Poster Similar

A method for calibrating a Trinocular Linear Camera Array (TLCA) for traffic surveillance applications, such as towards smart cities, is presented. A TLCA-specific parametrization guarantees that the calibration finds a model where all the cameras are on a straight line. The method uses both a chequerboard close to the camera, as well as measured 3D points far from the camera: points measured in world coordinates, as well as their corresponding 2D points found manually in the images. Superior calibration accuracy can be obtained compared to standard methods using only a single data source, largely due to the use of chequerboards, while the line constraint in the parametrization allows for joint rectification. The improved triangulation accuracy, from 8-12 cm to around 6 cm when calibrating with 30-50 points in our experiment, allowing better road user analysis. The method is demonstrated by a proof-of-concept application where a point cloud is generated from multiple disparity maps, visualizing road user detections in 3D.

AV-SLAM: Autonomous Vehicle SLAM with Gravity Direction Initialization

Kaan Yilmaz, Baris Suslu, Sohini Roychowdhury, L. Srikar Muppirisetty

Auto-TLDR; VI-SLAM with AGI: A combination of three SLAM algorithms for autonomous vehicles

Abstract Slides Poster Similar

Simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) algorithms that are aimed at autonomous vehicles (AVs) are required to utilize sensor redundancies specific to AVs and enable accurate, fast and repeatable estimations of pose and path trajectories. In this work, we present a combination of three SLAM algorithms that utilize a different subset of available sensors such as inertial measurement unit (IMU), a gray-scale mono-camera, and a Lidar. Also, we propose a novel acceleration-based gravity direction initialization (AGI) method for the visual-inertial SLAM algorithm. We analyze the SLAM algorithms and initialization methods for pose estimation accuracy, speed of convergence and repeatability on the KITTI odometry sequences. The proposed VI-SLAM with AGI method achieves relative pose errors less than 2\%, convergence in half a minute or less and convergence time variability less than 3s, which makes it preferable for AVs.

Better Prior Knowledge Improves Human-Pose-Based Extrinsic Camera Calibration

Olivier Moliner, Sangxia Huang, Kalle Åström

Auto-TLDR; Improving Human-pose-based Extrinsic Calibration for Multi-Camera Systems

Abstract Slides Poster Similar

Accurate extrinsic calibration of wide baseline multi-camera systems enables better understanding of 3D scenes for many applications and is of great practical importance. Classical Structure-from-Motion calibration methods require special calibration equipment so that accurate point correspondences can be detected between different views. In addition, an operator with some training is usually needed to ensure that data is collected in a way that leads to good calibration accuracy. This limits the ease of adoption of such technologies. Recently, methods have been proposed to use human pose estimation models to establish point correspondences, thus removing the need for any special equipment. The challenge with this approach is that human pose estimation algorithms typically produce much less accurate feature points compared to classical patch-based methods. Another problem is that ambient human motion might not be optimal for calibration. We build upon prior works and introduce several novel ideas to improve the accuracy of human-pose-based extrinsic calibration. Our first contribution is a robust reprojection loss based on a better understanding of the sources of pose estimation error. Our second contribution is a 3D human pose likelihood model learned from motion capture data. We demonstrate significant improvements in calibration accuracy by evaluating our method on four publicly available datasets.

Two-Stage Adaptive Object Scene Flow Using Hybrid CNN-CRF Model

Congcong Li, Haoyu Ma, Qingmin Liao

Auto-TLDR; Adaptive object scene flow estimation using a hybrid CNN-CRF model and adaptive iteration

Abstract Slides Poster Similar

Scene flow estimation based on stereo sequences is a comprehensive task relevant to disparity and optical flow. Some existing methods are time-consuming and often fail in the presence of reflective surfaces. In this paper, we propose a two-stage adaptive object scene flow estimation method using a hybrid CNN-CRF model (ACOSF), which benefits from high-quality features and the structured modelling capability. Meanwhile, in order to balance the computational efficiency and accuracy, we employ adaptive iteration for energy function optimization, which is flexible and efficient for various scenes. Besides, we utilize high-quality pixel selection to reduce the computation time with only a slight decrease in accuracy. Our method achieves competitive results with the state-of-the-art, which ranks second on the challenging KITTI 2015 scene flow benchmark.

Generic Merging of Structure from Motion Maps with a Low Memory Footprint

Gabrielle Flood, David Gillsjö, Patrik Persson, Anders Heyden, Kalle Åström

Auto-TLDR; A Low-Memory Footprint Representation for Robust Map Merge

Abstract Slides Poster Similar

With the development of cheap image sensors, the amount of available image data have increased enormously, and the possibility of using crowdsourced collection methods has emerged. This calls for development of ways to handle all these data. In this paper, we present new tools that will enable efficient, flexible and robust map merging. Assuming that separate optimisations have been performed for the individual maps, we show how only relevant data can be stored in a low memory footprint representation. We use these representations to perform map merging so that the algorithm is invariant to the merging order and independent of the choice of coordinate system. The result is a robust algorithm that can be applied to several maps simultaneously. The result of a merge can also be represented with the same type of low-memory footprint format, which enables further merging and updating of the map in a hierarchical way. Furthermore, the method can perform loop closing and also detect changes in the scene between the capture of the different image sequences. Using both simulated and real data — from both a hand held mobile phone and from a drone — we verify the performance of the proposed method.

Rotational Adjoint Methods for Learning-Free 3D Human Pose Estimation from IMU Data

Caterina Emilia Agelide Buizza, Yiannis Demiris

Auto-TLDR; Learning-free 3D Human Pose Estimation from Inertial Measurement Unit Data

Abstract Poster Similar

We present a new framework for learning-free 3D human pose estimation from Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) data. The proposed method does not rely on a full motion sequence to calculate a pose for any particular time point and thus can operate in real-time. A cost function based only on joint rotations is used, removing the need for frequent transformations between rotations and 3D Cartesian coordinates. A Jacobian that preserves skeleton structure is derived using Adjoint methods from Variational Data Assimilation. To facilitate further research in IMU-based Motion Capture, we provide a dataset that combines RGB and depth images from an Intel RealSense camera, marker-based motion capture from an Optitrack system and Xsens IMU data. We have evaluated our method on both our dataset and the Total Capture dataset, showing an average error across 24 joints of 0.45 and 0.48 radians respectively.

Benchmarking Cameras for OpenVSLAM Indoors

Kevin Chappellet, Guillaume Caron, Fumio Kanehiro, Ken Sakurada, Abderrahmane Kheddar

Auto-TLDR; OpenVSLAM: Benchmarking Camera Types for Visual Simultaneous Localization and Mapping

Abstract Slides Poster Similar

In this paper we benchmark different types of cameras and evaluate their performance in terms of reliable localization reliability and precision in Visual Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (vSLAM). Such benchmarking is merely found for visual odometry, but never for vSLAM. Existing studies usually compare several algorithms for a given camera. %This work is the first to handle the dual of the latter, i.e. comparing several cameras for a given SLAM algorithm. The evaluation methodology we propose is applied to the recent OpenVSLAM framework. The latter is versatile enough to natively deal with perspective, fisheye, 360 cameras in a monocular or stereoscopic setup, an in RGB or RGB-D modalities. Results in various sequences containing light variation and scenery modifications in the scene assess quantitatively the maximum localization rate for 360 vision. In the contrary, RGB-D vision shows the lowest localization rate, but highest precision when localization is possible. Stereo-fisheye trades-off with localization rates and precision between 360 vision and RGB-D vision. The dataset with ground truth will be made available in open access to allow evaluating other/future vSLAM algorithms with respect to these camera types.

Total Estimation from RGB Video: On-Line Camera Self-Calibration, Non-Rigid Shape and Motion

Antonio Agudo

Auto-TLDR; Joint Auto-Calibration, Pose and 3D Reconstruction of a Non-rigid Object from an uncalibrated RGB Image Sequence

Abstract Slides Poster Similar

In this paper we present a sequential approach to jointly retrieve camera auto-calibration, camera pose and the 3D reconstruction of a non-rigid object from an uncalibrated RGB image sequence, without assuming any prior information about the shape structure, nor the need for a calibration pattern, nor the use of training data at all. To this end, we propose a Bayesian filtering approach based on a sum-of-Gaussians filter composed of a bank of extended Kalman filters (EKF). For every EKF, we make use of dynamic models to estimate its state vector, which later will be Gaussianly combined to achieve a global solution. To deal with deformable objects, we incorporate a mechanical model solved by using the finite element method. Thanks to these ingredients, the resulting method is both efficient and robust to several artifacts such as missing and noisy observations as well as sudden camera motions, while being available for a wide variety of objects and materials, including isometric and elastic shape deformations. Experimental validation is proposed in real experiments, showing its strengths with respect to competing approaches.

P2D: A Self-Supervised Method for Depth Estimation from Polarimetry

Marc Blanchon, Desire Sidibe, Olivier Morel, Ralph Seulin, Daniel Braun, Fabrice Meriaudeau

Auto-TLDR; Polarimetric Regularization for Monocular Depth Estimation

Abstract Slides Poster Similar

Monocular depth estimation is a recurring subject in the ﬁeld of computer vision. Its ability to describe scenes via a depth map while reducing the constraints related to the formulation of perspective geometry tends to favor its use. However, despite the constant improvement of algorithms, most methods exploit only colorimetric information. Consequently, robustness to events to which the modality is not sensitive to, like specularity or transparency, is neglected. In response to this phenomenon, we propose using polarimetry as an input for a self-supervised monodepth network. Therefore, we propose exploiting polarization cues to encourage accurate reconstruction of scenes. Furthermore, we include a term of polarimetric regularization to state-of-the-art method to take speciﬁc advantage of the data. Our method is evaluated both qualitatively and quantitatively demonstrating that the contribution of this new information as well as an enhanced loss function improves depth estimation results, especially for specular areas.

MixedFusion: 6D Object Pose Estimation from Decoupled RGB-Depth Features

Hangtao Feng, Lu Zhang, Xu Yang, Zhiyong Liu

Auto-TLDR; MixedFusion: Combining Color and Point Clouds for 6D Pose Estimation

Abstract Slides Poster Similar

Estimating the 6D pose of objects is an important process for intelligent systems to achieve interaction with the real-world. As the RGB-D sensors become more accessible, the fusion-based methods have prevailed, since the point clouds provide complementary geometric information with RGB values. However, Due to the difference in feature space between color image and depth image, the network structures that directly perform point-to-point matching fusion do not effectively fuse the features of the two. In this paper, we propose a simple but effective approach, named MixedFusion. Different from the prior works, we argue that the spatial correspondence of color and point clouds could be decoupled and reconnected, thus enabling a more flexible fusion scheme. By performing the proposed method, more informative points can be mixed and fused with rich color features. Extensive experiments are conducted on the challenging LineMod and YCB-Video datasets, show that our method significantly boosts the performance without introducing extra overheads. Furthermore, when the minimum tolerance of metric narrows, the proposed approach performs better for the high-precision demands.

Vehicle Lane Merge Visual Benchmark

Kai Cordes, Hellward Broszio

Auto-TLDR; A Benchmark for Automated Cooperative Maneuvering Using Multi-view Video Streams and Ground Truth Vehicle Description

Abstract Slides Poster Similar

Automated driving is regarded as the most promising technology for improving road safety in the future. In this context, connected vehicles have an important role regarding their ability to perform cooperative maneuvers for challenging traffic situations. We propose a benchmark for automated cooperative maneuvers. The targeted cooperative maneuver is the vehicle lane merge where a vehicle on the acceleration lane merges into the traffic of a motorway. The benchmark enables the evaluation of vehicle localization approaches as well as the study of cooperative maneuvers. It consists of temporally synchronized multi-view video streams, highly accurate camera calibration, and ground truth vehicle descriptions, including position, heading, speed, and shape. For benchmark generation, the lane merge maneuver is performed by human drivers on a test track, resulting in 120 lane merge data sets with various traffic situations and video recording conditions.

3D Point Cloud Registration Based on Cascaded Mutual Information Attention Network

Xiang Pan, Xiaoyi Ji

Auto-TLDR; Cascaded Mutual Information Attention Network for 3D Point Cloud Registration

Abstract Slides Poster Similar

For 3D point cloud registration, how to improve the local feature correlation of two point clouds is a challenging problem. In this paper, we propose a cascaded mutual information attention registration network. The network improves the accuracy of point cloud registration by stacking residual structure and using lateral connection. Firstly, the local reference coordinate system is defined by spherical representation for the local point set, which improves the stability and reliability of local features under noise. Secondly, the attention structure is used to improve the network depth and ensure the convergence of the network. Furthermore, a lateral connection is introduced into the network to avoid the loss of features in the process of concatenation. In the experimental part, the results of different algorithms are compared. It can be found that the proposed cascaded network can enhance the correlation of local features between different point clouds. As a result, it improves the registration accuracy significantly over the DCP and other typical algorithms.

User-Independent Gaze Estimation by Extracting Pupil Parameter and Its Mapping to the Gaze Angle

Sang Yoon Han, Nam Ik Cho

Auto-TLDR; Gaze Point Estimation using Pupil Shape for Generalization

Abstract Slides Poster Similar

Since gaze estimation plays a crucial role in recognizing human intentions, it has been researched for a long time, and its accuracy is ever increasing. However, due to the wide variation in eye shapes and focusing abilities between the individuals, accuracies of most algorithms vary depending on each person in the test group, especially when the initial calibration is not well performed. To alleviate the user-dependency, we attempt to derive features that are general for most people and use them as the input to a deep network instead of using the images as the input. Specifically, we use the pupil shape as the core feature because it is directly related to the 3D eyeball rotation, and thus the gaze direction. While existing deep learning methods learn the gaze point by extracting various features from the image, we focus on the mapping function from the eyeball rotation to the gaze point by using the pupil shape as the input. It is shown that the accuracy of gaze point estimation also becomes robust for the uncalibrated points by following the characteristics of the mapping function. Also, our gaze network learns the gaze difference to facilitate the re-calibration process to fix the calibration-drift problem that typically occurs with glass-type or head-mount devices.

3D Pots Configuration System by Optimizing Over Geometric Constraints

Jae Eun Kim, Muhammad Zeeshan Arshad, Seong Jong Yoo, Je Hyeong Hong, Jinwook Kim, Young Min Kim

Auto-TLDR; Optimizing 3D Conﬁgurations for Stable Pottery Restoration from irregular and noisy evidence

Abstract Slides Poster Similar

While potteries are common artifacts excavated in archaeological sites, the restoration process relies on the manual cleaning and reassembling shattered pieces. Since the number of possible 3D conﬁgurations is considerably large, the exhaustive manual trial may result in an abrasion on fractured surfaces and even failure to ﬁnd the correct matches. As a result, many recent works suggest virtual reassembly from 3D scans of the fragments. The problem is challenging in the view of the conventional 3D geometric analysis, as it is hard to extract reliable shape features from the thin break lines. We propose to optimize the global conﬁguration by combining geometric constraints with information from noisy shape features. Speciﬁcally, we enforce bijection and continuity of sequence of correspondences given estimates of corners and pair-wise matching scores between multiple break lines. We demonstrate that our pipeline greatly increases the accuracy of correspondences, resulting in the stable restoration of 3D conﬁgurations from irregular and noisy evidence.

HPERL: 3D Human Pose Estimastion from RGB and LiDAR

Michael Fürst, Shriya T.P. Gupta, René Schuster, Oliver Wasenmüler, Didier Stricker

Auto-TLDR; 3D Human Pose Estimation Using RGB and LiDAR Using Weakly-Supervised Approach

Abstract Slides Poster Similar

In-the-wild human pose estimation has a huge potential for various fields, ranging from animation and action recognition to intention recognition and prediction for autonomous driving. The current state-of-the-art is focused only on RGB and RGB-D approaches for predicting the 3D human pose. However, not using precise LiDAR depth information limits the performance and leads to very inaccurate absolute pose estimation. With LiDAR sensors becoming more affordable and common on robots and autonomous vehicle setups, we propose an end-to-end architecture using RGB and LiDAR to predict the absolute 3D human pose with unprecedented precision. Additionally, we introduce a weakly-supervised approach to generate 3D predictions using 2D pose annotations from PedX. This allows for many new opportunities in the field of 3D human pose estimation.

Multi-Camera Sports Players 3D Localization with Identification Reasoning

Yukun Yang, Ruiheng Zhang, Wanneng Wu, Yu Peng, Xu Min

Auto-TLDR; Probabilistic and Identified Occupancy Map for Sports Players 3D Localization

Abstract Slides Poster Similar

Multi-camera sports players 3D localization is always a challenging task due to heavy occlusions in crowded sports scene. Traditional methods can only provide players locations without identification information. Existing methods of localization may cause ambiguous detection and unsatisfactory precision and recall, especially when heavy occlusions occur. To solve this problem, we propose a generic localization method by providing distinguishable results that have the probabilities of locations being occupied by players with unique ID labels. We design the algorithms with a multi-dimensional Bayesian model to create a Probabilistic and Identified Occupancy Map (PIOM). By using this model, we jointly apply deep learning-based object segmentation and identification to obtain sports players probable positions and their likely identification labels. This approach not only provides players 3D locations but also gives their ID information that are distinguishable from others. Experimental results demonstrate that our method outperforms the previous localization approaches with reliable and distinguishable outcomes.

Mobile Augmented Reality: Fast, Precise, and Smooth Planar Object Tracking

Dmitrii Matveichev, Daw-Tung Lin

Auto-TLDR; Planar Object Tracking with Sparse Optical Flow Tracking and Descriptor Matching

Abstract Slides Poster Similar

We propose an innovative method for combining sparse optical flow tracking and descriptor matching algorithms. The proposed approach solves the following problems that are inherent to keypoint-based and optical flow based tracking algorithms: spatial jitter, extreme scale transformation, extreme perspective transformation, degradation in the number of tracking points, and drifting of tracking points. Our algorithm provides smooth object-position tracking under six degrees of freedom transformations with a small computational cost for providing a high-quality real-time AR experience on mobile platforms. We experimentally demonstrate that our approach outperforms the state-of-the-art tracking algorithms while offering faster computational time. A mobile augmented reality (AR) application, which is developed using our approach, delivers planar object tracking with 30 FPS on modern mobile phones for a camera resolution of 1280$\times$720. Finally, we compare the performance of our AR application with that of the Vuforia-based AR application on the same planar objects database. The test results show that our AR application delivers better AR experience than Vuforia in terms of smooth transition of object-pose between video frames.

Self-Supervised Detection and Pose Estimation of Logistical Objects in 3D Sensor Data

Nikolas Müller, Jonas Stenzel, Jian-Jia Chen

Auto-TLDR; A self-supervised and fully automated deep learning approach for object pose estimation using simulated 3D data

Abstract Slides Poster Similar

Localization of objects in cluttered scenes with machine learning methods is a fairly young research area. Despite the high potential of object localization for full process automation in Industry 4.0 and logistical environments, 3D data sets for such applications to train machine learning models are not openly available and less publications have been made on that topic. To the authors knowledge, this is the first publication that describes a self-supervised and fully automated deep learning approach for object pose estimation using simulated 3D data. The solution covers the simulated generation of training data, the detection of objects in point clouds using a fully convolutional feedforward network and the computation of the pose for each detected object instance.

Temporal Pulses Driven Spiking Neural Network for Time and Power Efficient Object Recognition in Autonomous Driving

Wei Wang, Shibo Zhou, Jingxi Li, Xiaohua Li, Junsong Yuan, Zhanpeng Jin

Auto-TLDR; Spiking Neural Network for Real-Time Object Recognition on Temporal LiDAR Pulses

Abstract Slides Poster Similar

Accurate real-time object recognition from sensory data has long been a crucial and challenging task for autonomous driving. Even though deep neural networks (DNNs) have been widely applied in this area, their considerable processing latency, power consumption as well as computational complexity have been challenging issues for real-time autonomous driving applications. In this paper, we propose an approach to address the real-time object recognition problem utilizing spiking neural networks (SNNs). The proposed SNN model works directly with raw temporal LiDAR pulses without the pulse-to-point cloud preprocessing procedure, which can significantly reduce delay and power consumption. Being evaluated on various datasets derived from LiDAR and dynamic vision sensor (DVS), including Sim LiDAR, KITTI, and DVS-barrel, our proposed model has shown remarkable time and power efficiency, while achieving comparable recognition performance as the state-of-the-art methods. This paper highlights the SNN's great potentials in autonomous driving and related applications. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first attempt to use SNN to directly perform time and energy efficient object recognition on temporal LiDAR pulses in the setting of autonomous driving.

Motion Segmentation with Pairwise Matches and Unknown Number of Motions

Federica Arrigoni, Tomas Pajdla, Luca Magri

Auto-TLDR; Motion Segmentation using Multi-Modelfitting andpermutation synchronization

Abstract Slides Poster Similar

In this paper we address motion segmentation, that is the problem of clustering points in multiple images according to a number of moving objects. Two-frame correspondences are assumed as input without prior knowledge about trajectories. Our method is based on principles from ''multi-model fitting'' and ''permutation synchronization'', and - differently from previous techniques working under the same assumptions - it can handle an unknown number of motions. The proposed approach is validated on standard datasets, showing that it can correctly estimate the number of motions while maintaining comparable or better accuracy than the state of the art.

Unconstrained Vision Guided UAV Based Safe Helicopter Landing

Arindam Sikdar, Abhimanyu Sahu, Debajit Sen, Rohit Mahajan, Ananda Chowdhury

Auto-TLDR; Autonomous Helicopter Landing in Hazardous Environments from Unmanned Aerial Images Using Constrained Graph Clustering

Abstract Slides Poster Similar

In this paper, we have addressed the problem of automated detection of safe zone(s) for helicopter landing in hazardous environments from images captured by an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV). The unconstrained motion of the image capturing drone (the UAV in our case) makes the problem further difficult. The solution pipeline consists of natural landmark detection and tracking, stereo-pair generation using constrained graph clustering, digital terrain map construction and safe landing zone detection. The main methodological contribution lies in mathematically formulating epipolar constraint and then using it in a Minimum Spanning Tree (MST) based graph clustering approach. We have also made publicly available AHL (Autonomous Helicopter Landing) dataset, a new aerial video dataset captured by a drone, with annotated ground-truths. Experimental comparisons with other competing clustering methods i) in terms of Dunn Index and Davies Bouldin Index as well as ii) for frame-level safe zone detection in terms of F-measure and confusion matrix clearly demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed formulation.

Visual Saliency Oriented Vehicle Scale Estimation

Qixin Chen, Tie Liu, Jiali Ding, Zejian Yuan, Yuanyuan Shang

Auto-TLDR; Regularized Intensity Matching for Vehicle Scale Estimation with salient object detection

Abstract Slides Poster Similar

Vehicle scale estimation with a single camera is a typical application for intelligent transportation and it faces the challenges from visual computing while intensity-based method and descriptor-based method should be balanced. This paper proposed a vehicle scale estimation method based on salient object detection to resolve this problem. The regularized intensity matching method is proposed in Lie Algebra to achieve robust and accurate scale estimation, and descriptor matching and intensity matching are combined to minimize the proposed loss function. The visual attention mechanism is designed to select image patches with texture and remove the occluded image patches. Then the weights are assigned to pixels from the selected image patches which alleviates the influence of noise-corrupted pixels. The experiments show that the proposed method significantly outperforms state-of-the-art methods with regard to the robustness and accuracy of vehicle scale estimation.

Learning Knowledge-Rich Sequential Model for Planar Homography Estimation in Aerial Video

Pu Li, Xiaobai Liu

Auto-TLDR; Sequential Estimation of Planar Homographic Transformations over Aerial Videos

Abstract Slides Poster Similar

This paper presents an unsupervised approach that leverages raw aerial videos to learn to estimate planar homographic transformation between consecutive video frames. Previous learning-based estimators work on pairs of images to estimate their planar homographic transformations but suffer from severe over-fitting issues, especially when applying over aerial videos. To address this concern, we develop a sequential estimator that directly processes a sequence of video frames and estimates their pairwise planar homographic transformations in batches. We also incorporate a set of spatial-temporal knowledge to regularize the learning of such a sequence-to-sequence model. We collect a set of challenging aerial videos and compare the proposed method to the alternative algorithms. Empirical studies suggest that our sequential model achieves significant improvement over alternative image-based methods and the knowledge-rich regularization further boosts our system performance. Our codes and dataset could be found at https://github.com/Paul-LiPu/DeepVideoHomography

Polarimetric Image Augmentation

Marc Blanchon, Fabrice Meriaudeau, Olivier Morel, Ralph Seulin, Desire Sidibe

Auto-TLDR; Polarimetric Augmentation for Deep Learning in Robotics Applications

Abstract Poster Similar

This paper deals with new augmentation methods for an unconventional imaging modality sensitive to the physics of the observed scene called polarimetry. In nature, polarized light is obtained by reﬂection or scattering. Robotics applications in urban environments are subject to many obstacles that can be specular and therefore provide polarized light. These areas are prone to segmentation errors using standard modalities but could be solved using information carried by the polarized light. Deep Convolutional Neural Networks (DCNNs) have shown excellent segmentation results, but require a signiﬁcant amount of data to achieve best performances. The lack of data is usually overcomed by using augmentation methods. However, unlike RGB images, polarization images are not only scalar (intensity) images and standard augmentation techniques cannot be applied straightforwardly. We propose enhancing deep learning models through a regularized augmentation procedure applied to polarimetric data in order to characterize scenes more effectively under challenging conditions. We subsequently observe an average of 18.1% improvement in IoU between not augmented and regularized training procedures on real world data.

Cross-Regional Attention Network for Point Cloud Completion

Hang Wu, Yubin Miao

Auto-TLDR; Learning-based Point Cloud Repair with Graph Convolution

Abstract Slides Poster Similar

Point clouds obtained from real word scanning are always incomplete and ununiformly distributed, which would cause structural losses in 3D shape representations. Therefore, a learning-based method is introduced in this paper to repair partial point clouds and restore the complete shapes of target objects. First, we design an encoder that takes both local features and global features into consideration. Second, we establish a graph to connect the local features together, and then implement graph convolution with multi-head attention on it. The graph enables each local feature vector to search across the regions and selectively absorb other local features based on the its own features and global features. Third, we design a coarse decoder to collect cross-region features from the graph and generate coarse point clouds with low resolution, and a folding-based decoder to generate fine point clouds with high resolution. Our network is trained on six categories of objects in the ModelNet dataset, and its performance is compared with several existing methods, the results show that our network is able to generate dense complete point cloud with the highest accuracy.

Ghost Target Detection in 3D Radar Data Using Point Cloud Based Deep Neural Network

Mahdi Chamseddine, Jason Rambach, Oliver Wasenmüler, Didier Stricker

Auto-TLDR; Point Based Deep Learning for Ghost Target Detection in 3D Radar Point Clouds

Abstract Slides Poster Similar

Ghost targets are targets that appear at wrong locations in radar data and are caused by the presence of multiple indirect reflections between the target and the sensor. In this work, we introduce the first point based deep learning approach for ghost target detection in 3D radar point clouds. This is done by extending the PointNet network architecture by modifying its input to include radar point features beyond location and introducing skip connetions. We compare different input modalities and analyze the effects of the changes we introduced. We also propose an approach for automatic labeling of ghost targets 3D radar data using lidar as reference. The algorithm is trained and tested on real data in various driving scenarios and the tests show promising results in classifying real and ghost radar targets.

Hybrid Approach for 3D Head Reconstruction: Using Neural Networks and Visual Geometry

Oussema Bouafif, Bogdan Khomutenko, Mohammed Daoudi

Auto-TLDR; Recovering 3D Head Geometry from a Single Image using Deep Learning and Geometric Techniques

Abstract Slides Poster Similar

Recovering the 3D geometric structure of a face from a single input image is a challenging active research area in computer vision. In this paper, we present a novel method for reconstructing 3D heads from a single or multiple image(s) using a hybrid approach based on deep learning and geometric techniques. We propose an encoder-decoder network based on the U-net architecture and trained on synthetic data only. It predicts both pixel-wise normal vectors and landmarks maps from a single input photo. Landmarks are used for the pose computation and the initialization of the optimization problem, which, in turn, reconstructs the 3D head geometry by using a parametric morphable model and normal vector fields. State-of-the-art results are achieved through qualitative and quantitative evaluation tests on both single and multi-view settings. Despite the fact that the model was trained only on synthetic data, it successfully recovers 3D geometry and precise poses for real-world images.

RefiNet: 3D Human Pose Refinement with Depth Maps

Andrea D'Eusanio, Stefano Pini, Guido Borghi, Roberto Vezzani, Rita Cucchiara

Auto-TLDR; RefiNet: A Multi-stage Framework for 3D Human Pose Estimation

Abstract Slides Similar

Human Pose Estimation is a fundamental task for many applications in the Computer Vision community and it has been widely investigated in the 2D domain, i.e. intensity images. Therefore, most of the available methods for this task are mainly based on 2D Convolutional Neural Networks and huge manually-annotated RGB datasets, achieving stunning results. In this paper, we propose RefiNet, a multi-stage framework that regresses an extremely-precise 3D human pose estimation from a given 2D pose and a depth map. The framework consists of three different modules, each one specialized in a particular refinement and data representation, i.e. depth patches, 3D skeleton and point clouds. Moreover, we collect a new dataset, namely Baracca, acquired with RGB, depth and thermal cameras and specifically created for the automotive context. Experimental results confirm the quality of the refinement procedure that largely improves the human pose estimations of off-the-shelf 2D methods.

Multiple Future Prediction Leveraging Synthetic Trajectories

Lorenzo Berlincioni, Federico Becattini, Lorenzo Seidenari, Alberto Del Bimbo

Auto-TLDR; Synthetic Trajectory Prediction using Markov Chains

Abstract Slides Poster Similar

Trajectory prediction is an important task, especially in autonomous driving. The ability to forecast the position of other moving agents can yield to an effective planning, ensuring safety for the autonomous vehicle as well for the observed entities. In this work we propose a data driven approach based on Markov Chains to generate synthetic trajectories, which are useful for training a multiple future trajectory predictor. The advantages are twofold: on the one hand synthetic samples can be used to augment existing datasets and train more effective predictors; on the other hand, it allows to generate samples with multiple ground truths, corresponding to diverse equally likely outcomes of the observed trajectory. We define a trajectory prediction model and a loss that explicitly address the multimodality of the problem and we show that combining synthetic and real data leads to prediction improvements, obtaining state of the art results.

Holistic Grid Fusion Based Stop Line Estimation

Runsheng Xu, Faezeh Tafazzoli, Li Zhang, Timo Rehfeld, Gunther Krehl, Arunava Seal

Auto-TLDR; Fused Multi-Sensory Data for Stop Lines Detection in Intersection Scenarios

Abstract Slides Similar

Intersection scenarios provide the most complex traffic situations in Autonomous Driving and Driving Assistance Systems. Knowing where to stop in advance in an intersection is an essential parameter in controlling the longitudinal velocity of the vehicle. Most of the existing methods in literature solely use cameras to detect stop lines, which is typically not sufficient in terms of detection range. To address this issue, we propose a method that takes advantage of fused multi-sensory data including stereo camera and lidar as input and utilizes a carefully designed convolutional neural network architecture to detect stop lines. Our experiments show that the proposed approach can improve detection range compared to camera data alone, works under heavy occlusion without observing the ground markings explicitly, is able to predict stop lines for all lanes and allows detection at a distance up to 50 meters.

Photometric Stereo with Twin-Fisheye Cameras

Jordan Caracotte, Fabio Morbidi, El Mustapha Mouaddib

Auto-TLDR; Photometric stereo problem for low-cost 360-degree cameras

Abstract Slides Poster Similar

In this paper, we introduce and solve, for the first time, the photometric stereo problem for low-cost 360-degree cameras. In particular, we present a spherical image irradiance equation which is adapted to twin-fisheye cameras, and an original algorithm for the estimation of light directions based on the specular highlights observed on mirror balls. Extensive experiments with synthetic and real-world images captured by a Ricoh Theta V camera, demonstrate the effectiveness and robustness of the proposed 3D reconstruction pipeline. To foster reproducible research, the image dataset and code developed for this paper are made publicly available at the address: https://home.mis.u-picardie.fr/~fabio/PhotoSphere.html

Yolo+FPN: 2D and 3D Fused Object Detection with an RGB-D Camera

Ya Wang

Auto-TLDR; Yolo+FPN: Combining 2D and 3D Object Detection for Real-Time Object Detection

Abstract Slides Poster Similar

In this paper we propose a new deep neural network system, called Yolo+FPN, which fuses both 2D and 3D object detection algorithms to achieve better real-time object detection results and faster inference speed, to be used on real robots. Finding an optimized fusion strategy to efficiently combine 3D object detection with 2D detection information is useful and challenging for both indoor and outdoor robots. In order to satisfy real-time requirements, a trade-off between accuracy and efficiency is needed. We not only have improved training and test accuracies and lower mean losses on the KITTI object detection benchmark, but also achieve better average precision on 3D detection of all classes in three levels of difficulty. Also, we implemented Yolo+FPN system using an RGB-D camera, and compared the speed of 2D and 3D object detection using different GPUs. For the real implementation of both indoor and outdoor scenes, we focus on person detection, which is the most challenging and important among the three classes.

CARRADA Dataset: Camera and Automotive Radar with Range-Angle-Doppler Annotations

Arthur Ouaknine, Alasdair Newson, Julien Rebut, Florence Tupin, Patrick Pérez

Auto-TLDR; CARRADA: A dataset of synchronized camera and radar recordings with range-angle-Doppler annotations for autonomous driving

Abstract Slides Poster Similar

High quality perception is essential for autonomous driving (AD) systems. To reach the accuracy and robustness that are required by such systems, several types of sensors must be combined. Currently, mostly cameras and laser scanners (lidar) are deployed to build a representation of the world around the vehicle. While radar sensors have been used for a long time in the automotive industry, they are still under-used for AD despite their appealing characteristics (notably, their ability to measure the relative speed of obstacles and to operate even in adverse weather conditions). To a large extent, this situation is due to the relative lack of automotive datasets with real radar signals that are both raw and annotated. In this work, we introduce CARRADA, a dataset of synchronized camera and radar recordings with range-angle-Doppler annotations. We also present a semi-automatic annotation approach, which was used to annotate the dataset, and a radar semantic segmentation baseline, which we evaluate on several metrics. Both our code and dataset will be released.

Sequential Non-Rigid Factorisation for Head Pose Estimation

Stefania Cristina, Kenneth Patrick Camilleri

Auto-TLDR; Sequential Shape-and-Motion Factorisation for Head Pose Estimation in Eye-Gaze Tracking

Abstract Slides Poster Similar

Within the context of eye-gaze tracking, the capability of permitting the user to move naturally is an important step towards allowing for more natural user interaction in less constrained scenarios. Natural movement can be characterised by changes in head pose, as well as non-rigid face deformations as the user performs different facial expressions. While the estimation of head pose within the domain of eye-gaze tracking is being increasingly considered, the face is most often regarded as a rigid body. The few methods that factor the challenge of handling face deformations into the head pose estimation problem, often require the availability of a pre-defined face model or a considerable amount of training data. In this paper, we direct our attention towards the application of shape-and-motion factorisation for head pose estimation, since this does not generally rely on the availability of an initial face model. Over the years, various shape-and-motion factorisation methods have been proposed to address the challenges of rigid and non-rigid shape and motion recovery, in a batch or sequential manner. However, the real-time recovery of non-rigid shape and motion by factorisation remains, in general, an open problem. Our work addresses this open problem by proposing a sequential factorisation method for non-rigid shape and motion recovery, which does not rely on the availability of a pre-defined face deformation model or training data. Quantitative and qualitative results show that our method can handle various non-rigid face deformations without deterioration of the head pose estimation accuracy.

Dynamic Resource-Aware Corner Detection for Bio-Inspired Vision Sensors

Sherif Abdelmonem Sayed Mohamed, Jawad Yasin, Mohammad-Hashem Haghbayan, Antonio Miele, Jukka Veikko Heikkonen, Hannu Tenhunen, Juha Plosila

Auto-TLDR; Three Layer Filtering-Harris Algorithm for Event-based Cameras in Real-Time

Abstract Slides Similar

Event-based cameras are vision devices that transmit only brightness changes with low latency and ultra-low power consumption. Such characteristics make event-based cameras attractive in the field of localization and object tracking in resource-constrained systems. Since the number of generated events in such cameras is huge, the selection and filtering of the incoming events are beneficial from both increasing the accuracy of the features and reducing the computational load. In this paper, we present an algorithm to detect asynchronous corners form a stream of events in real-time on embedded systems. The algorithm is called the Three Layer Filtering-Harris or TLF-Harris algorithm. The algorithm is based on an events' filtering strategy whose purpose is 1) to increase the accuracy by deliberately eliminating some incoming events, i.e., noise and 2) to improve the real-time performance of the system, i.e., preserving a constant throughput in terms of input events per second, by discarding unnecessary events with a limited accuracy loss. An approximation of the Harris algorithm, in turn, is used to exploit its high-quality detection capability with a low-complexity implementation to enable seamless real-time performance on embedded computing platforms. The proposed algorithm is capable of selecting the best corner candidate among neighbors and achieves an average execution time savings of 59 % compared with the conventional Harris score. Moreover, our approach outperforms the competing methods, such as eFAST, eHarris, and FA-Harris, in terms of real-time performance, and surpasses Arc* in terms of accuracy.

Learning to Find Good Correspondences of Multiple Objects

Youye Xie, Yingheng Tang, Gongguo Tang, William Hoff

Auto-TLDR; Multi-Object Inliers and Outliers for Perspective-n-Point and Object Recognition

Abstract Slides Poster Similar

Given a set of 3D to 2D putative matches, labeling the correspondences as inliers or outliers plays a critical role in a wide range of computer vision applications including the Perspective-n-Point (PnP) and object recognition. In this paper, we study a more generalized problem which allows the matches to belong to multiple objects with distinct poses. We propose a deep architecture to simultaneously label the correspondences as inliers or outliers and classify the inliers into multiple objects. Specifically, we discretize the 3D rotation space into twenty convex cones based on the facets of a regular icosahedron. For each facet, a facet classifier is trained to predict the probability of a correspondence being an inlier for a pose whose rotation normal vector points towards this facet. An efficient RANSAC-based post-processing algorithm is also proposed to further process the prediction results and detect the objects. Experiments demonstrate that our method is very efficient compared to existing methods and is capable of simultaneously labeling and classifying the inliers of multiple objects with high precision.

Distinctive 3D Local Deep Descriptors

Fabio Poiesi, Davide Boscaini

Auto-TLDR; DIPs: Local Deep Descriptors for Point Cloud Regression

Abstract Slides Poster Similar

We present a simple but yet effective method for learning distinctive 3D local deep descriptors (DIPs) that can be used to register point clouds without requiring an initial alignment. Point cloud patches are extracted, canonicalised with respect to their estimated local reference frame and encoded into rotation-invariant compact descriptors by a PointNet-based deep neural network. DIPs can effectively generalise across different sensor modalities because they are learnt end-to-end from locally and randomly sampled points. Moreover, because DIPs encode only local geometric information, they are robust to clutter, occlusions and missing regions. We evaluate and compare DIPs against alternative hand-crafted and deep descriptors on several indoor and outdoor datasets reconstructed using different sensors. Results show that DIPs (i) achieve comparable results to the state-of-the-art on RGB-D indoor scenes (3DMatch dataset), (ii) outperform state-of-the-art by a large margin on laser-scanner outdoor scenes (ETH dataset), and (iii) generalise to indoor scenes reconstructed with the Visual-SLAM system of Android ARCore.

Manual-Label Free 3D Detection Via an Open-Source Simulator

Zhen Yang, Chi Zhang, Zhaoxiang Zhang, Huiming Guo

Auto-TLDR; DA-VoxelNet: A Novel Domain Adaptive VoxelNet for LIDAR-based 3D Object Detection

Abstract Slides Poster Similar

LiDAR based 3D object detectors typically need a large amount of detailed-labeled point cloud data for training, but these detailed labels are commonly expensive to acquire. In this paper, we propose a manual-label free 3D detection algorithm that leverages the CARLA simulator to generate a large amount of self-labeled training samples and introduces a novel Domain Adaptive VoxelNet (DA-VoxelNet) that can cross the distribution gap from the synthetic data to the real scenario. The self-labeled training samples are generated by a set of high quality 3D models embedded in a CARLA simulator and a proposed LiDAR-guided sampling algorithm. Then a DA-VoxelNet that integrates both a sample-level DA module and an anchor-level DA module is proposed to enable the detector trained by the synthetic data to adapt to real scenario. Experimental results show that the proposed unsupervised DA 3D detector on KITTI evaluation set can achieve 76.66% and 56.64% mAP on BEV mode and 3D mode respectively. The results reveal a promising perspective of training a LIDAR-based 3D detector without any hand-tagged label.

Generic Document Image Dewarping by Probabilistic Discretization of Vanishing Points

Gilles Simon, Salvatore Tabbone

Auto-TLDR; Robust Document Dewarping using vanishing points

Abstract Slides Poster Similar

Document images dewarping is still a challenge especially when documents are captured with one camera in an uncontrolled environment. In this paper we propose a generic approach based on vanishing points (VP) to reconstruct the 3D shape of document pages. Unlike previous methods we do not need to segment the text included in the documents. Therefore, our approach is less sensitive to pre-processing and segmentation errors. The computation of the VPs is robust and relies on the a-contrario framework, which has only one parameter whose setting is based on probabilistic reasoning instead of experimental tuning. Thus, our method can be applied to any kind of document including text and non-text blocks and extended to other kind of images. Experimental results show that the proposed method is robust to a variety of distortions.

Edge-Aware Monocular Dense Depth Estimation with Morphology

Zhi Li, Xiaoyang Zhu, Haitao Yu, Qi Zhang, Yongshi Jiang

Auto-TLDR; Spatio-Temporally Smooth Dense Depth Maps Using Only a CPU

Abstract Slides Poster Similar

Dense depth maps play an important role in Computer Vision and AR (Augmented Reality). For CV applications, a dense depth map is the cornerstone of 3D reconstruction allowing real objects to be precisely displayed in the computer. And Dense depth maps can handle correct occlusion relationships between virtual content and real objects for better user experience in AR. However, the complicated computation limits the development of computing dense depth maps. We present a novel algorithm that produces low latency, spatio-temporally smooth dense depth maps using only a CPU. The depth maps exhibit sharp discontinuities at depth edges in low computational complexity ways. Our algorithm obtains the sparse SLAM reconstruction first, then extracts coarse depth edges from a down-sampled RGB image by morphology operations. Next, we thin the depth edges and align them with image edges. Finally, a Warm-Start initialization scheme and an improved optimization solver are adopted to accelerate convergence. We evaluate our proposal quantitatively and the result shows improvements on the accuracy of depth map with respect to other state-of-the-art and baseline techniques.