15,508 research outputs found
Featureless visual processing for SLAM in changing outdoor environments
Vision-based SLAM is mostly a solved problem providing clear, sharp images can be obtained. However, in outdoor environments a number of factors such as rough terrain, high speeds and hardware limitations can result in these conditions not being met. High speed transit on rough terrain can lead to image blur and under/over exposure, problems that cannot easily be dealt with using low cost hardware. Furthermore, recently there has been a growth in interest in lifelong autonomy for robots, which brings with it the challenge in outdoor environments of dealing with a moving sun and lack of constant artificial lighting. In this paper, we present a lightweight approach to visual localization and visual odometry that addresses the challenges posed by perceptual change and low cost cameras. The approach combines low resolution imagery with the SLAM algorithm, RatSLAM. We test the system using a cheap consumer camera mounted on a small vehicle in a mixed urban and vegetated environment, at times ranging from dawn to dusk and in conditions ranging from sunny weather to rain. We first show that the system is able to provide reliable mapping and recall over the course of the day and incrementally incorporate new visual scenes from different times into an existing map. We then restrict the system to only learning visual scenes at one time of day, and show that the system is still able to localize and map at other times of day. The results demonstrate the viability of the approach in situations where image quality is poor and environmental or hardware factors preclude the use of visual features
Keyframe-based monocular SLAM: design, survey, and future directions
Extensive research in the field of monocular SLAM for the past fifteen years
has yielded workable systems that found their way into various applications in
robotics and augmented reality. Although filter-based monocular SLAM systems
were common at some time, the more efficient keyframe-based solutions are
becoming the de facto methodology for building a monocular SLAM system. The
objective of this paper is threefold: first, the paper serves as a guideline
for people seeking to design their own monocular SLAM according to specific
environmental constraints. Second, it presents a survey that covers the various
keyframe-based monocular SLAM systems in the literature, detailing the
components of their implementation, and critically assessing the specific
strategies made in each proposed solution. Third, the paper provides insight
into the direction of future research in this field, to address the major
limitations still facing monocular SLAM; namely, in the issues of illumination
changes, initialization, highly dynamic motion, poorly textured scenes,
repetitive textures, map maintenance, and failure recovery
Shape Animation with Combined Captured and Simulated Dynamics
We present a novel volumetric animation generation framework to create new
types of animations from raw 3D surface or point cloud sequence of captured
real performances. The framework considers as input time incoherent 3D
observations of a moving shape, and is thus particularly suitable for the
output of performance capture platforms. In our system, a suitable virtual
representation of the actor is built from real captures that allows seamless
combination and simulation with virtual external forces and objects, in which
the original captured actor can be reshaped, disassembled or reassembled from
user-specified virtual physics. Instead of using the dominant surface-based
geometric representation of the capture, which is less suitable for volumetric
effects, our pipeline exploits Centroidal Voronoi tessellation decompositions
as unified volumetric representation of the real captured actor, which we show
can be used seamlessly as a building block for all processing stages, from
capture and tracking to virtual physic simulation. The representation makes no
human specific assumption and can be used to capture and re-simulate the actor
with props or other moving scenery elements. We demonstrate the potential of
this pipeline for virtual reanimation of a real captured event with various
unprecedented volumetric visual effects, such as volumetric distortion,
erosion, morphing, gravity pull, or collisions
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