1,752 research outputs found
Sparse-to-Continuous: Enhancing Monocular Depth Estimation using Occupancy Maps
This paper addresses the problem of single image depth estimation (SIDE),
focusing on improving the quality of deep neural network predictions. In a
supervised learning scenario, the quality of predictions is intrinsically
related to the training labels, which guide the optimization process. For
indoor scenes, structured-light-based depth sensors (e.g. Kinect) are able to
provide dense, albeit short-range, depth maps. On the other hand, for outdoor
scenes, LiDARs are considered the standard sensor, which comparatively provides
much sparser measurements, especially in areas further away. Rather than
modifying the neural network architecture to deal with sparse depth maps, this
article introduces a novel densification method for depth maps, using the
Hilbert Maps framework. A continuous occupancy map is produced based on 3D
points from LiDAR scans, and the resulting reconstructed surface is projected
into a 2D depth map with arbitrary resolution. Experiments conducted with
various subsets of the KITTI dataset show a significant improvement produced by
the proposed Sparse-to-Continuous technique, without the introduction of extra
information into the training stage.Comment: Accepted. (c) 2019 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted.
Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or
future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising
or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or
redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of
this work in other work
Sparse-to-Dense: Depth Prediction from Sparse Depth Samples and a Single Image
We consider the problem of dense depth prediction from a sparse set of depth
measurements and a single RGB image. Since depth estimation from monocular
images alone is inherently ambiguous and unreliable, to attain a higher level
of robustness and accuracy, we introduce additional sparse depth samples, which
are either acquired with a low-resolution depth sensor or computed via visual
Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM) algorithms. We propose the use of
a single deep regression network to learn directly from the RGB-D raw data, and
explore the impact of number of depth samples on prediction accuracy. Our
experiments show that, compared to using only RGB images, the addition of 100
spatially random depth samples reduces the prediction root-mean-square error by
50% on the NYU-Depth-v2 indoor dataset. It also boosts the percentage of
reliable prediction from 59% to 92% on the KITTI dataset. We demonstrate two
applications of the proposed algorithm: a plug-in module in SLAM to convert
sparse maps to dense maps, and super-resolution for LiDARs. Software and video
demonstration are publicly available.Comment: accepted to ICRA 2018. 8 pages, 8 figures, 3 tables. Video at
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNIIT_M7x7Y. Code at
https://github.com/fangchangma/sparse-to-dens
Robust Dense Mapping for Large-Scale Dynamic Environments
We present a stereo-based dense mapping algorithm for large-scale dynamic
urban environments. In contrast to other existing methods, we simultaneously
reconstruct the static background, the moving objects, and the potentially
moving but currently stationary objects separately, which is desirable for
high-level mobile robotic tasks such as path planning in crowded environments.
We use both instance-aware semantic segmentation and sparse scene flow to
classify objects as either background, moving, or potentially moving, thereby
ensuring that the system is able to model objects with the potential to
transition from static to dynamic, such as parked cars. Given camera poses
estimated from visual odometry, both the background and the (potentially)
moving objects are reconstructed separately by fusing the depth maps computed
from the stereo input. In addition to visual odometry, sparse scene flow is
also used to estimate the 3D motions of the detected moving objects, in order
to reconstruct them accurately. A map pruning technique is further developed to
improve reconstruction accuracy and reduce memory consumption, leading to
increased scalability. We evaluate our system thoroughly on the well-known
KITTI dataset. Our system is capable of running on a PC at approximately 2.5Hz,
with the primary bottleneck being the instance-aware semantic segmentation,
which is a limitation we hope to address in future work. The source code is
available from the project website (http://andreibarsan.github.io/dynslam).Comment: Presented at IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation
(ICRA), 201
- …