Improved 3D reconstruction in smart-room environments using ToF imaging

This paper presents the use of Time-of-Flight (ToF) cameras in smart-rooms and how this leads to improved results in segmenting the people in the room from the background and consequently better 3D reconstruction of foreground objects. A calibrated rig consisting of one Swissranger SR3100 Time-of-Flight range camera and a high resolution standard CCD camera is set in a smart-room containing five other standard cameras. A probabilistic background model is used to segment each view and a shape from silhouette volume is reconstructed. It is shown that the presence of the range camera gives ways of eliminating regional artifacts and therefore creating a more robust input for higher level applications such as people tracking or human motion analysis.

Research highlights
► SfS reconstruction with color cameras is difficult due to false foreground detections.
► ToF camera range images provide simple and robust foreground segmentation.
► Using a ToF camera with color cameras constrains the SFS result and eliminates defects.