Applications of structure from motion: a survey

Structure from motion (SfM) has been an active research area in computer vision for decades and numerous practical applications are benefiting from this research. While no previous work has tried to summarize the applications appearing in the literature, this paper deals with a comprehensive overview of recent applications of SfM by classifying them into 10 categories, namely augmented reality, autonomous navigation/guidance, motion capture, hand-eye calibration, image/video processing, image-based 3D modeling, remote sensing, image organization/browsing, segmentation and recognition, and military applications. The goal is to provide insights for researchers to position their work more appropriately in the context of existing techniques, and to perceive both new applications and relevant research problems.