Passive stereo range imaging for semi-autonomous land navigation

Many navigation tasks, such as the use of unmanned vehicles for planetary exploration or defense reconnaissance, require onboard range sensors to automatically detect obstacles in the path of a vehicle. Passive ranging via stereo triangulation, or stereo vision, is a very attractive approach to obstacle detection because it is nonemissive, nonmechanical, nonscanning, and compatible with stereographic viewing by human operators. However, several problems have restricted the practicality of stereo ranging in the past, including limitations on the speed, reliability, and generality of existing stereo matching algorithms. This situated has changed, because the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) recently demonstrated the first semi-autonomous, robotic traverses of natural terrain to use stereo vision for obstacle detection, with all computing onboard the vehicle. This article reviews the main algorithmic paradigms for stereo vision, describes a near realtime stereo vision system developed at JPL, and presents experimental results that demonstrate the emerging practically of stereo vision for obstacle detection in semi-autonomous land navigation. © 1992 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

FPGA based disparity map computation with vergence control

Depth estimation in a scene using image pairs acquired by a stereo camera setup, is one of the important tasks of stereo vision systems. The disparity between the stereo images allows for 3D information acquisition which is indispensable in many machine vision applications. Practical stereo vision systems involve wide ranges of disparity levels. Considering that disparity map extraction of an image is a computationally demanding task, practical real-time FPGA based algorithms require increased device utilization resource usage, depending on the disparity levels operational range, which leads to significant power consumption. In this paper a new hardware-efficient real-time disparity map computation module is developed. The module constantly estimates the precisely required range of disparity levels upon a given stereo image set, maintaining this range as low as possible by verging the stereo setup cameras axes. This enables a parallel-pipelined design, for the overall module, realized on a single FPGA device of the Altera Stratix IV family. Accurate disparity maps are computed at a rate of more than 320 frames per second, for a stereo image pair of 640 × 480 pixels spatial resolution with a disparity range of 80 pixels. The presented technique provides very good processing speed at the expense of accuracy, with very good scalability in terms of disparity levels. The proposed method enables a suitable module delivering high performance in real-time stereo vision applications, where space and power are significant concerns.     

Computer Vision on Mars

Increasing the level of spacecraft autonomy is essential for broadening the reach of solar system exploration. Computer vision has and will continue to play an important role in increasing autonomy of both spacecraft and Earth-based robotic vehicles. This article addresses progress on computer vision for planetary rovers and landers and has four main parts. First, we review major milestones in the development of computer vision for robotic vehicles over the last four decades. Since research on applications for Earth and space has often been closely intertwined, the review includes elements of both. Second, we summarize the design and performance of computer vision algorithms used on Mars in the NASA/JPL Mars Exploration Rover (MER) mission, which was a major step forward in the use of computer vision in space. These algorithms did stereo vision and visual odometry for rover navigation and feature tracking for horizontal velocity estimation for the landers. Third, we summarize ongoing research to improve vision systems for planetary rovers, which includes various aspects of noise reduction, FPGA implementation, and vision-based slip perception. Finally, we briefly survey other opportunities for computer vision to impact rovers, landers, and orbiters in future solar system exploration missions.     

A real-time fuzzy hardware structure for disparity map computation

Stereo images acquired by a stereo camera setup provide depth estimation of a scene. Numerous machine vision applications deal with retrieval of 3D information. Disparity map recovery from a stereo image pair involves computationally complex algorithms. Previous methods of disparity map computation are mainly restricted to software-based techniques on general-purpose architectures, presenting relatively high execution time. In this paper, a new hardware-implemented real-time disparity map computation module is realized. This enables a hardware-based fuzzy inference system parallel-pipelined design, for the overall module, implemented on a single FPGA device with a typical operating frequency of 138 MHz. This provides accurate disparity map computation at a rate of nearly 440 frames per second, given a stereo image pair with a disparity range of 80 pixels and 640 × 480 pixels spatial resolution. The proposed method allows a fast disparity map computational module to be built, enabling a suitable module for real-time stereo vision applications.     

A spatial variant approach for vergence control in complex scenes

The flexibility in primate vision that utilizes active binocular vision is unparalleled even with modern fixed-stereo-based vision systems. However to follow the path of active binocular vision, the difficulty of attaining fixative capabilities is of primary concern. This paper presents a binocular vergence model that utilizes the retino-cortical log polar mapping in the primate vision system. Individual images of the binocular pair were converted to multi-resolution pyramids bearing a coarse-to-fine architecture (low resolution to high resolution) and disparity estimation on these pyramidal resolutions was performed using normalized cross correlation on the log polar images. The model was deployed on an actual binocular vergence system with independent pan-tilt controls for each camera and the system was able to robustly verge on objects even in cluttered environment with real time performance. This paper even presents the experimental results of the system functioning in unbalanced contrast exposures between the two cameras. The results proved favorable for real world robotic vision applications where noise is prevalent. The proposed vergence control model was also compared with a standard window based Cartesian stereo matching method and showed superior performance.     

FPGA based real-time on-road stereo vision system

Accurate and Real-Time stereo vision is an essential need for many computer vision applications, such as On-Road stereo vision system. In this paper, a fast and accurate system for On-Road stereo vision application is presented. In order to achieve this purpose, first, an algorithm is presented that is optimized for hardware implementation and On-Road application, then an appropriate hardware architecture for this algorithm is proposed. The approach uses gradient and Census transform as initial cost function, then cost is aggregate in cross-based supported reign. LR-check and disparity refinement is also utilized to improve final disparity. The proposed design is a standalone stereo vision system where all steps of algorithm is implemented on a hardware platform. Overall system is implemented on FPGA platform and it is tested on KITTI Database. The proposed system is also tested on Middlebury database without any changes in parameters. Experimental results show that the proposed system has high accuracy in KITTI and Middlebury database. In term of hardware resource, the system occupy %%66 of XC6VLX240T FPGA device for 1920 × 1080 image with 96 disparity levels that operated at 53.5 Fps.     

BETWEEN LOCATION AWARENESS AND AWARE LOCATIONS: WHERE TO PUT THE INTELLIGENCE

This article presents a review on vision-aided systems and proposes an approach for visual rehabilitation using stereo vision technology. The proposed system utilizes stereo vision, image processing methodology, and a sonification procedure to support blind mobilization. The developed system includes wearable computer, stereo cameras as vision sensor, and stereo earphones, all molded in a helmet. The image of the scene in front of the visually handicapped is captured by the vision sensors. The captured images are processed to enhance the important features in the scene in front for mobilization assistance. The image processing is designed as a model of human vision by identifying the obstacles and their depth information. The processed image is mapped onto musical stereo sound for the blind's understanding of the scene in front. The developed method has been tested in the indoor and outdoor environments and the proposed image processing methodology is found to be effective for object identification.     

Experimental combination of intensity and stereo edges for improved snake segmentation

In this paper, we present an algorithm to combine edge information from stereo-derived disparity maps with edges from the original intensity/color image to improve the contour detection in images of natural scenes. After computing the disparity map, we generate a so-called “edge-combination image,” which relies on those edges of the original image that are also present in the stereo map. We describe an algorithm to identify corresponding intensity and disparity edges, which are usually not perfectly aligned due to errors in the stereo reconstruction. Our experiments show that the proposed edge-combination approach can significantly improve the segmentation results of an active contour algorithm. The text was submitted by the authors in English. Danijela Markovic graduated from the Faculty of Electronic Engineering, University of Nis, Serbia in 1997. She is currently a PhD student at the Institute for Software Technology and Interactive Systems, Vienna University of Technology. Her research interests are in computer vision and computer graphics, including stereo vision and curve/surface modeling. Particularly, she is interested in object segmentation, feature extraction, and tracking. Margrit Gelautz received her PhD degree in computer science from Graz University of Technology, Austria. She worked on stereo and interferometric image processing for radar remote sensing applications during a postdoctoral stay at Stanford University. Her current research interests include image and video processing for multimedia applications, with a focus on 3D vision and rendering techniques.     

基于光学三角几何关系的三维表面重建方法

工业图像处理作为图像处理技术的工业应用,是自动化技术的发展方向之一.传统的二维图像处理已经在视觉检测系统中广泛应用.目前利用光学方法的三维数字化具有越来越重要的意义.在工业生产中,多种获取三维数据的途径得到应用.其中最重要的方法有立体视觉,条形光相位平移法和条形光格雷编码法.本文重点介绍这三种方法在视觉检测系统中的运用.所开发的系统实现了被测工件可视化,而且更容易地将三维图像集成到生产线中.     

一种改进的区域双目立体匹配方法

双目立体匹配是机器视觉中的热点、难点问题。分析了区域立体匹配方法的优缺点,提出了改进的区域立体匹配方法。首先,采集双目视觉图像对对图像对进行校正、去噪等处理,利用颜色特征进行图像分割,再用一种快速有效的块立体匹配算法对图像进行立体匹配。然后,在匹配过程中使用绝对误差累积(SAD)的小窗口来寻找左右两幅图像之间的匹配点。最后,通过滤波得到最终的视差图。实验表明:该方法能够有效地解决重复区域、低纹理区域、纹理相似区域、遮挡区域等带来的误匹配问题,能得到准确清晰的稠密视差图。     

Design and hardware implementation of a stereo-matching system based on dynamic programming

A new real-time stereo system is presented based on a hardware implementation of an efficient Dynamic Programming algorithm. A simple state-machine calculates the cost-matrix along the diagonal of the 2-D disparity space for each epipolar pair of image scan-lines. Minimum transition costs are stored in embedded RAM and are used to backtrack disparities at clock rate. All calculations are within a pre-determined slice of the cost plane, representing the useful disparity range. The system is designed as a VHDL library component and is implemented as a SoC in a medium-capacity Field Programmable Gate Array chip. It can process stereo-pairs in full VGA resolution at a rate of 25 Mpixels/s and produces 8-bit dense disparity maps within a range of disparities up to 65 pixels. The design is evaluated comparing to ground truth and in terms of resource usage. It is also compared to a software implementation of the Dynamic Programming algorithm and to other FPGA-based stereo systems.     

3-D shape reconstruction in an active stereo vision system using genetic algorithms

The recovery of 3-D shape information (depth) using stereo vision analysis is one of the major areas in computer vision and has given rise to a great deal of literature in the recent past. The widely known stereo vision methods are the passive stereo vision approaches that use two cameras. Obtaining 3-D information involves the identification of the corresponding 2-D points between left and right images. Most existing methods tackle this matching task from singular points, i.e. finding points in both image planes with more or less the same neighborhood characteristics. One key problem we have to solve is that we are on the first instance unable to know a priori whether a point in the first image has a correspondence or not due to surface occlusion or simply because it has been projected out of the scope of the second camera. This makes the matching process very difficult and imposes a need of an a posteriori stage to remove false matching.In this paper we are concerned with the active stereo vision systems which offer an alternative to the passive stereo vision systems. In our system, a light projector that illuminates objects to be analyzed by a pyramid-shaped laser beam replaces one of the two cameras. The projections of laser rays on the objects are detected as spots in the image. In this particular case, only one image needs to be treated, and the stereo matching problem boils down to associating the laser rays and their corresponding real spots in the 2-D image. We have expressed this problem as a minimization of a global function that we propose to perform using Genetic Algorithms (GAs). We have implemented two different algorithms: in the first, GAs are performed after a deterministic search. In the second, data is partitioned into clusters and GAs are independently applied in each cluster. In our second contribution in this paper, we have described an efficient system calibration method. Experimental results are presented to illustrate the feasibility of our approach. The proposed method yields high accuracy 3-D reconstruction even for complex objects. We conclude that GAs can effectively be applied to this matching problem.     

GPU近实时线性双目立体代价聚合

目的 近年来双目视觉领域的研究重点逐步转而关注其“实时化”策略的研究,而立体代价聚合是双目视觉中最为复杂且最为耗时的步骤,为此,提出一种基于GPU通用计算(GPGPU)技术的近实时双目立体代价聚合算法。方法 选用一种匹配精度接近于全局匹配算法的局部算法——线性立体匹配算法(linear stereo matching)作为代价聚合策略;结合线性代价聚合的原理,对其主要步骤(代价计算、均值滤波及系数求解等)的计算流程进行有针对性地并行优化。结果 对于相同的实验样本,用本文方法在NVIDA GTX780 实验平台上能在更短的时间计算出代价矩阵,与原有的CPU实现方法相比,代价聚合的效率平均有了数十倍的提升。结论 实时双目立体代价聚合方法,为在个人通用PC平台上实时获取高质量双目视觉深度信息提供了一个高效可靠的途径。     

Analog VLSI implementation for stereo correspondence between 2-Dimages

Many robotics and navigation systems utilizing stereopsis to determine depth have rigid size and power constraints and require direct physical implementation of the stereo algorithm. The main challenges lie in managing the communication between image sensor and image processor arrays, and in parallelizing the computation to determine stereo correspondence between image pixels in real-time. This paper describes the first comprehensive system level demonstration of a dedicated low-power analog VLSI (very large scale integration) architecture for stereo correspondence suitable for real-time implementation. The inputs to the implemented chip are the ordered pixels from a stereo image pair, and the output is a two-dimensional disparity map. The approach combines biologically inspired silicon modeling with the necessary interfacing options for a complete practical solution that can be built with currently available technology in a compact package. Furthermore, the strategy employed considers multiple factors that may degrade performance, including the spatial correlations in images and the inherent accuracy limitations of analog hardware, and augments the design with countermeasures.     

An FPGA-based RGBD imager

This paper describes a trinocular stereo vision system using a single chip of FPGA to generate the composite color (RGB) and disparity data stream at video rate, called the RGBD imager. The system uses the triangular configuration of three cameras for synchronous image capture and the trinocular adaptive cooperative algorithm based on local aggregation for smooth and accurate dense disparity mapping. We design a fine-grain parallel and pipelining architecture in FPGA for implementation to achieve a high computational and real-time throughput. A binary floating-point format is customized for data representation to satisfy the wide data range and high computation precision demands in the disparity calculation. Memory management and data bit-width control are applied in the system to reduce the hardware resource consumption and accelerate the processing speed. The system is able to produce dense disparity maps with 320 × 240 pixels in a disparity search range of 64 pixels at the rate of 30 frames per second.     

Real-time people localization and tracking through fixed stereo vision

Detecting, locating, and tracking people in a dynamic environment is important in many applications, ranging from security and environmental surveillance to assistance to people in domestic environments, to the analysis of human activities. To this end, several methods for tracking people have been developed in the field of Computer Vision using different settings, such as monocular cameras, stereo sensors, multiple cameras. In this article we describe a method for People Localization and Tracking (PLT) based on a calibrated fixed stereo vision sensor, its implementation and experimental results. The system analyzes three components of the stereo data (the left intensity image, the disparity image, and the 3-D world locations of measured points) to dynamically update a model of the background; extract foreground objects, such as people and rearranged furniture; track their positions in the world. The system is mostly suitable for indoor medium size environments. It can reliably detect and track people moving in an medium size area (a room or a corridor) in front of the sensor with high reliability and good precision.     

基于视差平面分割的移动机器人障碍物地图构建方法

作为自主移动机器人地表障碍物探测（GPOD）技术的一部分,提出了一种利用双目摄像机的视差图像 获取信息来构建机器人前方障碍物栅格地图的方法. 该方法融合了3 维立体视觉技术以及2 维图像处理技术,前者 依据视差图的直方图信息对视差图像进行自适应平面分割,把每个平面看作是3 维场景中的实物切片进而提取障碍 物3 维信息,后者通过计算各平面上的障碍物信息曲线来提取障碍物信息,把立体视觉数据从视差图像空间变换到 2 维的障碍物地图空间. 给出了该方法构建障碍物地图的整体过程,试验结果证明了该算法的有效性和精确性.     

基于模糊判别的立体匹配算法

立体视觉一直是计算机视觉领域所研究的一个中心问题,而立体匹配则是立体视觉技术中最关键也是最困难的部分,就得到适用于基于图象绘制技术中视图合成的准确、高密度视差图（Disparity Map）而言,现有的一些方法存在一定的局限性。考虑到立体匹配过程中存在的不确定性和模糊性,本文将已获得广泛应用的模糊理论引入立体匹配领域,提出了基于模糊判别的立体匹配算法,并用实际图象与合成图象进行了实验验证,结果表明该算法效果良好,具有实用价值。     

Leveraging cost matrix structure for hardware implementation of stereo disparity computation using dynamic programming

Dynamic programming is a powerful method for solving energy minimisation problems in computer vision, for example stereo disparity computations. While it may be desirable to implement this algorithm in hardware to achieve frame-rate processing, a na?¨ve implementation may fail to meet timing requirements. In this paper, the structure of the cost matrix is examined to provide improved methods of hardware implementation. It is noted that by computing cost matrix entries along anti-diagonals instead of rows, the cost matrix entries can be computed in a pipelined architecture. Further, if only a subset of the cost matrix needs to be considered, for example by placing limits on the disparity range (include neglecting negative disparities by assuming rectified images), the resources required to compute the cost matrix in parallel can be reduced. Boundary conditions required to allow computing a subset of the cost matrix are detailed. Finally, a hardware solution of Cox’s maximum-likelihood, dynamic programming stereo disparity algorithm is implemented to demonstrate the performance achieved. The design provides high frame rate (>123 fps) estimates for a large disparity range (e.g. 128 pixels), for image sizes of 640 × 480 pixels, and can be simply extended to work well over 200 fps.     

改进的跨尺度引导滤波立体匹配算法

作为双目三维重建中的关键步骤,双目立体匹配算法完成了从平面视觉到立体视觉的转化.但如何平衡双目立体匹配算法的运行速度和精度仍然是一个棘手的问题.本文针对现有的局部立体匹配算法在弱纹理、深度不连续等特定区域匹配精度低的问题,并同时考虑到算法实时性,提出了一种改进的跨多尺度引导滤波的立体匹配算法.首先融合AD和Census变换两种代价计算方法,然后采用基于跨尺度的引导滤波进行代价聚合,在进行视差计算时通过制定一个判断准则判断图像中每一个像素点的最小聚合代价对应的视差值是否可靠,当判断对应的视差值不可靠时,对像素点构建基于梯度相似性的自适应窗口,并基于自适应窗口修正该像素点对应的视差值.最后通过视差精化得到最终的视差图.在Middlebury测试平台上对标准立体图像对的实验结果表明,与传统基于引导滤波器的立体匹配算法相比具有更高的精度.