Image-based Geolocalization by Ground-to-2.5D Map Matching

We study the image-based geolocalization problem, aiming to localize ground-view query images on cartographic maps. Current methods often utilize cross-view localization techniques to match ground-view query images with 2D maps. However, the performance of these methods is unsatisfactory due to significant cross-view appearance differences. In this paper, we lift cross-view matching to a 2.5D space, where heights of structures (e.g., trees and buildings) provide geometric information to guide the cross-view matching. We propose a new approach to learning representative embeddings from multi-modal data. Specifically, we establish a projection relationship between 2.5D space and 2D aerial-view space. The projection is further used to combine multi-modal features from the 2.5D and 2D maps using an effective pixel-to-point fusion method. By encoding crucial geometric cues, our method learns discriminative location embeddings for matching panoramic images and maps. Additionally, we construct the first large-scale ground-to-2.5D map geolocalization dataset to validate our method and facilitate future research. Both single-image based and route based localization experiments are conducted to test our method. Extensive experiments demonstrate that the proposed method achieves significantly higher localization accuracy and faster convergence than previous 2D map-based approaches

RGB2LIDAR: Towards Solving Large-Scale Cross-Modal Visual Localization

We study an important, yet largely unexplored problem of large-scale cross-modal visual localization by matching ground RGB images to a geo-referenced aerial LIDAR 3D point cloud (rendered as depth images). Prior works were demonstrated on small datasets and did not lend themselves to scaling up for large-scale applications. To enable large-scale evaluation, we introduce a new dataset containing over 550K pairs (covering 143 km^2 area) of RGB and aerial LIDAR depth images. We propose a novel joint embedding based method that effectively combines the appearance and semantic cues from both modalities to handle drastic cross-modal variations. Experiments on the proposed dataset show that our model achieves a strong result of a median rank of 5 in matching across a large test set of 50K location pairs collected from a 14km^2 area. This represents a significant advancement over prior works in performance and scale. We conclude with qualitative results to highlight the challenging nature of this task and the benefits of the proposed model. Our work provides a foundation for further research in cross-modal visual localization.Comment: ACM Multimedia 202

Automated Map Reading: Image Based Localisation in 2-D Maps Using Binary Semantic Descriptors

We describe a novel approach to image based localisation in urban environments using semantic matching between images and a 2-D map. It contrasts with the vast majority of existing approaches which use image to image database matching. We use highly compact binary descriptors to represent semantic features at locations, significantly increasing scalability compared with existing methods and having the potential for greater invariance to variable imaging conditions. The approach is also more akin to human map reading, making it more suited to human-system interaction. The binary descriptors indicate the presence or not of semantic features relating to buildings and road junctions in discrete viewing directions. We use CNN classifiers to detect the features in images and match descriptor estimates with a database of location tagged descriptors derived from the 2-D map. In isolation, the descriptors are not sufficiently discriminative, but when concatenated sequentially along a route, their combination becomes highly distinctive and allows localisation even when using non-perfect classifiers. Performance is further improved by taking into account left or right turns over a route. Experimental results obtained using Google StreetView and OpenStreetMap data show that the approach has considerable potential, achieving localisation accuracy of around 85% using routes corresponding to approximately 200 meters.Comment: 8 pages, submitted to IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems 201

Semantic localisation via globally unique instance segmentation

In this work we propose a novel approach to semantic localisation. Our work is motivated by the need for environment perception techniques which not only perform self-localisation within a map but also simultaneously recognise surrounding objects. Such capabilities are crucial for computer vision applications which interact with the environment: autonomous driving, augmented reality or robotics. In order to achieve this goal we propose a solution which consists of three key steps. Firstly, a database of panoramic RGB images and corresponding globally unique, per-pixel object instance labels is built for the desired environment where we typically consider objects from static categories such as "building" or "tree". Secondly, a semantic segmentation network capable of predicting more than 3000 labels is trained on the collected data. Finally, for a given panoramic query image, the corresponding instance label image predicted by the network is used for semantic matching within the database. The matching is performed in two stages: (i) a fast retrieval of a small subset of database images (~100) with highly overlapping instance label histograms, followed by (ii) an explicit approximate 3 DoF (yaw, pitch, roll) alignment of the selected subset of images and the query image. We evaluate our approach in challenging indoor and outdoor navigation scenarios, achieving better or similar performance when compared to state-of-the-art image retrieval-based localisation approaches using key-point matching and image level embedding. Our contribution includes: (i) a description of a novel semantic localisation approach using globally unique instance segmentation, (ii) corresponding quantitative and qualitative analysis and (iii) a novel CamVid-360 dataset containing 986 labelled instances of buildings, trees, road signs and poles

UAVs for the Environmental Sciences

This book gives an overview of the usage of UAVs in environmental sciences covering technical basics, data acquisition with different sensors, data processing schemes and illustrating various examples of application

Learning geometric and lighting priors from natural images

Comprendre les images est d’une importance cruciale pour une pléthore de tâches, de la composition numérique au ré-éclairage d’une image, en passant par la reconstruction 3D d’objets. Ces tâches permettent aux artistes visuels de réaliser des chef-d’oeuvres ou d’aider des opérateurs à prendre des décisions de façon sécuritaire en fonction de stimulis visuels. Pour beaucoup de ces tâches, les modèles physiques et géométriques que la communauté scientifique a développés donnent lieu à des problèmes mal posés possédant plusieurs solutions, dont généralement une seule est raisonnable. Pour résoudre ces indéterminations, le raisonnement sur le contexte visuel et sémantique d’une scène est habituellement relayé à un artiste ou un expert qui emploie son expérience pour réaliser son travail. Ceci est dû au fait qu’il est généralement nécessaire de raisonner sur la scène de façon globale afin d’obtenir des résultats plausibles et appréciables. Serait-il possible de modéliser l’expérience à partir de données visuelles et d’automatiser en partie ou en totalité ces tâches ? Le sujet de cette thèse est celui-ci : la modélisation d’a priori par apprentissage automatique profond pour permettre la résolution de problèmes typiquement mal posés. Plus spécifiquement, nous couvrirons trois axes de recherche, soient : 1) la reconstruction de surface par photométrie, 2) l’estimation d’illumination extérieure à partir d’une seule image et 3) l’estimation de calibration de caméra à partir d’une seule image avec un contenu générique. Ces trois sujets seront abordés avec une perspective axée sur les données. Chacun de ces axes comporte des analyses de performance approfondies et, malgré la réputation d’opacité des algorithmes d’apprentissage machine profonds, nous proposons des études sur les indices visuels captés par nos méthodes.Understanding images is needed for a plethora of tasks, from compositing to image relighting, including 3D object reconstruction. These tasks allow artists to realize masterpieces or help operators to safely make decisions based on visual stimuli. For many of these tasks, the physical and geometric models that the scientific community has developed give rise to ill-posed problems with several solutions, only one of which is generally reasonable. To resolve these indeterminations, the reasoning about the visual and semantic context of a scene is usually relayed to an artist or an expert who uses his experience to carry out his work. This is because humans are able to reason globally on the scene in order to obtain plausible and appreciable results. Would it be possible to model this experience from visual data and partly or totally automate tasks? This is the topic of this thesis: modeling priors using deep machine learning to solve typically ill-posed problems. More specifically, we will cover three research axes: 1) surface reconstruction using photometric cues, 2) outdoor illumination estimation from a single image and 3) camera calibration estimation from a single image with generic content. These three topics will be addressed from a data-driven perspective. Each of these axes includes in-depth performance analyses and, despite the reputation of opacity of deep machine learning algorithms, we offer studies on the visual cues captured by our methods