Photo Hull regularized stereo

A regularization-based approach to 3D reconstruction from multiple images is proposed. As one of the most widely used multiple-view 3D reconstruction algorithms, Space Carving can produce a Photo Hull of a scene, which is at best a coarse volumetric model. The two-view stereo algorithm, on the other hand, can generate a more accurate reconstruction of the surfaces, provided that a given surface is visible to both views. The proposed method is essentially a data fusion approach to 3D reconstruction, combining the above two algorithms by means of regularization. The process is divided into two steps: (1) computing the Photo Hull from multiple calibrated images and (2) selecting two of the images as input and solving the two-view stereo problem by global optimization, using the Photo Hull as the regularizer. Our dynamic programming implementation of this regularization-based stereo approach potentially provides an efficient and robust way of reconstructing 3D surfaces. The results of an implementation of this theory is presented on real data sets and compared with peer algorithms.