Data Flow ORB-SLAM for Real-time Performance on Embedded GPU Boards

The use of embedded boards on robots, including unmanned aerial and ground vehicles, is increasing thanks to the availability of GPU equipped low-cost embedded boards in the market. Porting algorithms originally designed for desktop CPUs on those boards is not straightforward due to hardware limitations. In this paper, we present how we modified and customized the open source SLAM algorithm ORB-SLAM2 to run in real-time on the NVIDIA Jetson TX2. We adopted a data flow paradigm to process the images, obtaining an efficient CPU/GPU load distribution that results in a processing speed of about 30 frames per second. Quantitative experimental results on four different sequences of the KITTI datasets demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach. The source code of our data flow ORB-SLAM2 algorithm is publicly available on GitHub

Fine-To-Coarse Global Registration of RGB-D Scans

RGB-D scanning of indoor environments is important for many applications, including real estate, interior design, and virtual reality. However, it is still challenging to register RGB-D images from a hand-held camera over a long video sequence into a globally consistent 3D model. Current methods often can lose tracking or drift and thus fail to reconstruct salient structures in large environments (e.g., parallel walls in different rooms). To address this problem, we propose a "fine-to-coarse" global registration algorithm that leverages robust registrations at finer scales to seed detection and enforcement of new correspondence and structural constraints at coarser scales. To test global registration algorithms, we provide a benchmark with 10,401 manually-clicked point correspondences in 25 scenes from the SUN3D dataset. During experiments with this benchmark, we find that our fine-to-coarse algorithm registers long RGB-D sequences better than previous methods

DSP-SLAM: object oriented SLAM with deep shape priors

We propose DSP-SLAM, an object-oriented SLAM system that builds a rich and accurate joint map of dense 3D models for foreground objects, and sparse landmark points to represent the background. DSP-SLAM takes as input the 3D point cloud reconstructed by a feature-based SLAM system and equips it with the ability to enhance its sparse map with dense reconstructions of detected objects. Objects are detected via semantic instance segmentation, and their shape and pose is estimated using category-specific deep shape embeddings as priors, via a novel second order optimization. Our object-aware bundle adjustment builds a pose-graph to jointly optimize camera poses, object locations and feature points. DSP-SLAM can operate at 10 frames per second on 3 different input modalities: monocular, stereo, or stereo+LiDAR. We demonstrate DSP-SLAM operating at almost frame rate on monocular-RGB sequences from the Freiburg and Redwood-OS datasets, and on stereo+LiDAR sequences on the KITTI odometry dataset showing that it achieves high-quality full object reconstructions, even from partial observations, while maintaining a consistent global map. Our evaluation shows improvements in object pose and shape reconstruction with respect to recent deep prior-based reconstruction methods and reductions in camera tracking drift on the KITTI dataset

Integrated estimation of UAV image orientation with a generalised building model

The estimation of position and attitude of a camera, addressed as image orientation in photogrammetry, is an important task to obtain information on where a platform is located in the world or relative to objects. Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) as an increasingly popular platform led to new applications, some of which involve low flight altitudes and specific requirements such as low weight and low cost of sensors. Image orientation needs additional information to retrieve not only relative measurements but position and attitude in a world coordinate system. Given the requirements on sensors and especially for flights in between obstacles in urban environments classically used information of Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) and Inertial Measurement Units (IMU) or specially marked ground control points (GCP) are often inaccurate or unavailable. The idea addressed within this thesis is to improve the UAV image orientation based on an existing generalised building model. Such models are increasingly available and provide ground control that is helpful to compensate inaccurate or unavailable camera positions measured by GNSS and drift effects of image orientation. Typically, for UAV applications in street corridors, the geometric accuracy and the level of detail of such models is low compared to the high accuracy and high geometric resolution of the image measurements. Therefore, although the building model differs from the observed scene due to its generalisation, relations of the photogrammetric measurements to the building model are formulated and used in the determination of image orientation. Three approaches to assign tie points to model planes in object space are presented, and a sliding window as well as a global hybrid bundle adjustment are set up for image orientation aided by a generalised building model. The assignments lead to fictitious observations of the distance of tie points to model planes and are iteratively refined by bundle adjustment. Experiments with an image sequence captured flying between buildings show an improvement of image orientation from the metre range with purely GNSS measurements to the decimetre range when using the generalised building model with the simplest assignment method based on point-to-plane distances. No improvement by searching planes in the tie point cloud to indirectly find the relations of tie points to model planes is observed. The results are compared to a building model of higher detail and systematic effects are investigated. In summary, the developed method is found to significantly improve UAV image orientation using a generalised building model successfully.Die Schätzung von Position und Lage einer Kamera, die in der Photogrammetrie als Bildorientierung bezeichnet wird, ist eine grundlegende Aufgabe, um Informationen darüber zu erhalten, wo sich eine Plattform in der Welt oder relativ zu Objekten befindet. Zunehmend führen unbemannte Luftfahrtsysteme (UAV) als Plattform zu neuen Anwendungen, die zum Teil geringe Flughöhen und spezifische Anforderungen wie Gewicht und Kosten der Sensoren mit sich bringen. Für die Bildorientierung werden zusätzliche Informationen benötigt, um nicht nur relative Messungen, sondern auch Position und Lage in einem Weltkoordinatensystem bestimmen zu können. Angesichts dieser Anforderungen und insbesondere für Flüge zwischen Hindernissen in städtischen Gebieten sind die klassisch verwendeten Informationen von Navigationssatelliten- (GNSS) und Intertialmesssystemen (IMU) oder auch speziell markierten Passpunkten (GCP) oft nicht verfügbar oder zu ungenau. Die hier behandelte Idee ist daher, die Bildorientierung von UAVs auf der Grundlage eines bestehenden generalisierten Gebäudemodells zu verbessern. Solche Modelle sind in zunehmendem Maße verfügbar und bieten eine Möglichkeit, ungenaue oder nicht verfügbare GNSS-Kamerapositionen und Drifteffekte der Bildorientierung zu kompensieren. Bei UAV-Befliegungen in Straßenschluchten sind die geometrische Genauigkeit und der Detaillierungsgrad solcher Modelle im Vergleich zur hohen Genauigkeit und hohen geometrischen Auflösung der Bildmessungen typischerweise gering. Obwohl das Modell also aufgrund seiner Generalisierung von der beobachteten Szene abweicht, können Beziehungen der photogrammetrischen Messungen zum Gebäudemodell formuliert und in der Bildorientierung verwendet werden. Es werden drei Ansätze zur Zuordnung von Verknüpfungspunkten zu Modellebenen im Objektraum sowie eine hybride Bündelausgleichung zur Bildorientierung mit Hilfe eines generalisierten Gebäudemodells, die global oder fensterbasiert abläuft, vorgestellt. Die Zuordnungen führen zu fiktiven Beobachtungen für den Abstand von Verknüpfungspunkten zu Modellebenen und werden während der iterativen Bündelausgleichung verfeinert. Experimente mit einer zwischen Gebäuden aufgenommenen Bildsequenz zeigen eine Verbesserung der Bildorientierung vom Meterbereich rein mit GNSS-Messungen in den Dezimeterbereich bei Verwendung des generalisierten Gebäudemodells mit der einfachsten Zuordnungsmethode auf Basis von Punkt-zu-Ebene-Distanzen. Eine Verbesserung der Punkt-zu-Ebene-Zuordnungen durch die Suche von Ebenen in der Punktwolke wird nicht beobachtet. Zusammenfassend lässt sich sagen, dass die entwickelte Methode die UAV-Bildorientierung mit Hilfe eines generalisierten Gebäudemodells signifikant verbessert

Map-Based Localization for Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Navigation

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) require precise pose estimation when navigating in indoor and GNSS-denied / GNSS-degraded outdoor environments. The possibility of crashing in these environments is high, as spaces are confined, with many moving obstacles. There are many solutions for localization in GNSS-denied environments, and many different technologies are used. Common solutions involve setting up or using existing infrastructure, such as beacons, Wi-Fi, or surveyed targets. These solutions were avoided because the cost should be proportional to the number of users, not the coverage area. Heavy and expensive sensors, for example a high-end IMU, were also avoided. Given these requirements, a camera-based localization solution was selected for the sensor pose estimation. Several camera-based localization approaches were investigated. Map-based localization methods were shown to be the most efficient because they close loops using a pre-existing map, thus the amount of data and the amount of time spent collecting data are reduced as there is no need to re-observe the same areas multiple times. This dissertation proposes a solution to address the task of fully localizing a monocular camera onboard a UAV with respect to a known environment (i.e., it is assumed that a 3D model of the environment is available) for the purpose of navigation for UAVs in structured environments. Incremental map-based localization involves tracking a map through an image sequence. When the map is a 3D model, this task is referred to as model-based tracking. A by-product of the tracker is the relative 3D pose (position and orientation) between the camera and the object being tracked. State-of-the-art solutions advocate that tracking geometry is more robust than tracking image texture because edges are more invariant to changes in object appearance and lighting. However, model-based trackers have been limited to tracking small simple objects in small environments. An assessment was performed in tracking larger, more complex building models, in larger environments. A state-of-the art model-based tracker called ViSP (Visual Servoing Platform) was applied in tracking outdoor and indoor buildings using a UAVs low-cost camera. The assessment revealed weaknesses at large scales. Specifically, ViSP failed when tracking was lost, and needed to be manually re-initialized. Failure occurred when there was a lack of model features in the cameras field of view, and because of rapid camera motion. Experiments revealed that ViSP achieved positional accuracies similar to single point positioning solutions obtained from single-frequency (L1) GPS observations standard deviations around 10 metres. These errors were considered to be large, considering the geometric accuracy of the 3D model used in the experiments was 10 to 40 cm. The first contribution of this dissertation proposes to increase the performance of the localization system by combining ViSP with map-building incremental localization, also referred to as simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM). Experimental results in both indoor and outdoor environments show sub-metre positional accuracies were achieved, while reducing the number of tracking losses throughout the image sequence. It is shown that by integrating model-based tracking with SLAM, not only does SLAM improve model tracking performance, but the model-based tracker alleviates the computational expense of SLAMs loop closing procedure to improve runtime performance. Experiments also revealed that ViSP was unable to handle occlusions when a complete 3D building model was used, resulting in large errors in its pose estimates. The second contribution of this dissertation is a novel map-based incremental localization algorithm that improves tracking performance, and increases pose estimation accuracies from ViSP. The novelty of this algorithm is the implementation of an efficient matching process that identifies corresponding linear features from the UAVs RGB image data and a large, complex, and untextured 3D model. The proposed model-based tracker improved positional accuracies from 10 m (obtained with ViSP) to 46 cm in outdoor environments, and improved from an unattainable result using VISP to 2 cm positional accuracies in large indoor environments. The main disadvantage of any incremental algorithm is that it requires the camera pose of the first frame. Initialization is often a manual process. The third contribution of this dissertation is a map-based absolute localization algorithm that automatically estimates the camera pose when no prior pose information is available. The method benefits from vertical line matching to accomplish a registration procedure of the reference model views with a set of initial input images via geometric hashing. Results demonstrate that sub-metre positional accuracies were achieved and a proposed enhancement of conventional geometric hashing produced more correct matches - 75% of the correct matches were identified, compared to 11%. Further the number of incorrect matches was reduced by 80%

Grouping Uncertain Oriented Projective Geometric Entities with Application to Automatic Building Reconstruction

The fully automatic reconstruction of 3d scenes from a set of 2d images has always been a key issue in photogrammetry and computer vision and has not been solved satisfactory so far. Most of the current approaches match features between the images based on radiometric cues followed by a reconstruction using the image geometry. The motivation for this work is the conjecture that in the presence of highly redundant data it should be possible to recover the scene structure by grouping together geometric primitives in a bottom-up manner. Oriented projective geometry will be used throughout this work, which allows to represent geometric primitives, such as points, lines and planes in 2d and 3d space as well as projective cameras, together with their uncertainty. The first major contribution of the work is the use of uncertain oriented projective geometry, rather than uncertain projective geometry, that enables the representation of more complex compound entities, such as line segments and polygons in 2d and 3d space as well as 2d edgels and 3d facets. Within the uncertain oriented projective framework a procedure is developed, which allows to test pairwise relations between the various uncertain oriented projective entities. Again, the novelty lies in the possibility to check relations between the novel compound entities. The second major contribution of the work is the development of a data structure, specifically designed to enable performing the tests between large numbers of entities in an efficient manner. Being able to efficiently test relations between the geometric entities, a framework for grouping those entities together is developed. Various different grouping methods are discussed. The third major contribution of this work is the development of a novel grouping method that by analyzing the entropy change incurred by incrementally adding observations into an estimation is able to balance efficiency against robustness in order to achieve better grouping results. Finally the applicability of the proposed representations, tests and grouping methods for the task of purely geometry based building reconstruction from oriented aerial images is demonstrated. lt will be shown that in the presence of highly redundant datasets it is possible to achieve reasonable reconstruction results by grouping together geometric primitives.Gruppierung unsicherer orientierter projektiver geometrischer Elemente mit Anwendung in der automatischen Gebäuderekonstruktion Die vollautomatische Rekonstruktion von 3D Szenen aus einer Menge von 2D Bildern war immer ein Hauptanliegen in der Photogrammetrie und Computer Vision und wurde bisher noch nicht zufriedenstellend gelöst. Die meisten aktuellen Ansätze ordnen Merkmale zwischen den Bildern basierend auf radiometrischen Eigenschaften zu. Daran schließt sich dann eine Rekonstruktion auf der Basis der Bildgeometrie an. Die Motivation für diese Arbeit ist die These, dass es möglich sein sollte, die Struktur einer Szene durch Gruppierung geometrischer Primitive zu rekonstruieren, falls die Eingabedaten genügend redundant sind. Orientierte projektive Geometrie wird in dieser Arbeit zur Repräsentation geometrischer Primitive, wie Punkten, Linien und Ebenen in 2D und 3D sowie projektiver Kameras, zusammen mit ihrer Unsicherheit verwendet. Der erste Hauptbeitrag dieser Arbeit ist die Verwendung unsicherer orientierter projektiver Geometrie, anstatt von unsicherer projektiver Geometrie, welche die Repräsentation von komplexeren zusammengesetzten Objekten, wie Liniensegmenten und Polygonen in 2D und 3D sowie 2D Edgels und 3D Facetten, ermöglicht. Innerhalb dieser unsicheren orientierten projektiven Repräsentation wird ein Verfahren zum Testen paarweiser Relationen zwischen den verschiedenen unsicheren orientierten projektiven geometrischen Elementen entwickelt. Dabei liegt die Neuheit wieder in der Möglichkeit, Relationen zwischen den neuen zusammengesetzten Elementen zu prüfen. Der zweite Hauptbeitrag dieser Arbeit ist die Entwicklung einer Datenstruktur, welche speziell auf die effiziente Prüfung von solchen Relationen zwischen vielen Elementen ausgelegt ist. Die Möglichkeit zur effizienten Prüfung von Relationen zwischen den geometrischen Elementen erlaubt nun die Entwicklung eines Systems zur Gruppierung dieser Elemente. Verschiedene Gruppierungsmethoden werden vorgestellt. Der dritte Hauptbeitrag dieser Arbeit ist die Entwicklung einer neuen Gruppierungsmethode, die durch die Analyse der Änderung der Entropie beim Hinzufügen von Beobachtungen in die Schätzung Effizienz und Robustheit gegeneinander ausbalanciert und dadurch bessere Gruppierungsergebnisse erzielt. Zum Schluss wird die Anwendbarkeit der vorgeschlagenen Repräsentationen, Tests und Gruppierungsmethoden für die ausschließlich geometriebasierte Gebäuderekonstruktion aus orientierten Luftbildern demonstriert. Es wird gezeigt, dass unter der Annahme von hoch redundanten Datensätzen vernünftige Rekonstruktionsergebnisse durch Gruppierung von geometrischen Primitiven erzielbar sind

Grouping Uncertain Oriented Projective Geometric Entities with Application to Automatic Building Reconstruction

The fully automatic reconstruction of 3d scenes from a set of 2d images has always been a key issue in photogrammetry and computer vision and has not been solved satisfactory so far. Most of the current approaches match features between the images based on radiometric cues followed by a reconstruction using the image geometry. The motivation for this work is the conjecture that in the presence of highly redundant data it should be possible to recover the scene structure by grouping together geometric primitives in a bottom-up manner. Oriented projective geometry will be used throughout this work, which allows to represent geometric primitives, such as points, lines and planes in 2d and 3d space as well as projective cameras, together with their uncertainty. The first major contribution of the work is the use of uncertain oriented projective geometry, rather than uncertain projective geometry, that enables the representation of more complex compound entities, such as line segments and polygons in 2d and 3d space as well as 2d edgels and 3d facets. Within the uncertain oriented projective framework a procedure is developed, which allows to test pairwise relations between the various uncertain oriented projective entities. Again, the novelty lies in the possibility to check relations between the novel compound entities. The second major contribution of the work is the development of a data structure, specifically designed to enable performing the tests between large numbers of entities in an efficient manner. Being able to efficiently test relations between the geometric entities, a framework for grouping those entities together is developed. Various different grouping methods are discussed. The third major contribution of this work is the development of a novel grouping method that by analyzing the entropy change incurred by incrementally adding observations into an estimation is able to balance efficiency against robustness in order to achieve better grouping results. Finally the applicability of the proposed representations, tests and grouping methods for the task of purely geometry based building reconstruction from oriented aerial images is demonstrated. It will be shown that in the presence of highly redundant datasets it is possible to achieve reasonable reconstruction results by grouping together geometric primitives.Gruppierung unsicherer orientierter projektiver geometrischer Elemente mit Anwendung in der automatischen Gebäuderekonstruktion Die vollautomatische Rekonstruktion von 3D Szenen aus einer Menge von 2D Bildern war immer ein Hauptanliegen in der Photogrammetrie und Computer Vision und wurde bisher noch nicht zufriedenstellend gelöst. Die meisten aktuellen Ansätze ordnen Merkmale zwischen den Bildern basierend auf radiometrischen Eigenschaften zu. Daran schließt sich dann eine Rekonstruktion auf der Basis der Bildgeometrie an. Die Motivation für diese Arbeit ist die These, dass es möglich sein sollte, die Struktur einer Szene durch Gruppierung geometrischer Primitive zu rekonstruieren, falls die Eingabedaten genügend redundant sind. Orientierte projektive Geometrie wird in dieser Arbeit zur Repräsentation geometrischer Primitive, wie Punkten, Linien und Ebenen in 2D und 3D sowie projektiver Kameras, zusammen mit ihrer Unsicherheit verwendet.Der erste Hauptbeitrag dieser Arbeit ist die Verwendung unsicherer orientierter projektiver Geometrie, anstatt von unsicherer projektiver Geometrie, welche die Repräsentation von komplexeren zusammengesetzten Objekten, wie Liniensegmenten und Polygonen in 2D und 3D sowie 2D Edgels und 3D Facetten, ermöglicht. Innerhalb dieser unsicheren orientierten projektiven Repräsentation wird ein Verfahren zum testen paarweiser Relationen zwischen den verschiedenen unsicheren orientierten projektiven geometrischen Elementen entwickelt. Dabei liegt die Neuheit wieder in der Möglichkeit, Relationen zwischen den neuen zusammengesetzten Elementen zu prüfen. Der zweite Hauptbeitrag dieser Arbeit ist die Entwicklung einer Datenstruktur, welche speziell auf die effiziente Prüfung von solchen Relationen zwischen vielen Elementen ausgelegt ist. Die Möglichkeit zur effizienten Prüfung von Relationen zwischen den geometrischen Elementen erlaubt nun die Entwicklung eines Systems zur Gruppierung dieser Elemente. Verschiedene Gruppierungsmethoden werden vorgestellt. Der dritte Hauptbeitrag dieser Arbeit ist die Entwicklung einer neuen Gruppierungsmethode, die durch die Analyse der änderung der Entropie beim Hinzufügen von Beobachtungen in die Schätzung Effizienz und Robustheit gegeneinander ausbalanciert und dadurch bessere Gruppierungsergebnisse erzielt. Zum Schluss wird die Anwendbarkeit der vorgeschlagenen Repräsentationen, Tests und Gruppierungsmethoden für die ausschließlich geometriebasierte Gebäuderekonstruktion aus orientierten Luftbildern demonstriert. Es wird gezeigt, dass unter der Annahme von hoch redundanten Datensätzen vernünftige Rekonstruktionsergebnisse durch Gruppierung von geometrischen Primitiven erzielbar sind