Passive Determination Of Three-Dimensional Form From Dynamic Imagery

William B. Lacina; William Q. Nicholson

doi:10.1117/12.957513

4 September 1979 Passive Determination Of Three-Dimensional Form From Dynamic Imagery

William B. Lacina, William Q. Nicholson

Proceedings Volume 0186, Digital Processing of Aerial Images; (1979) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.957513
Event: 1979 Huntsville Technical Symposium, 1979, Huntsville, United States

Abstract

A critical problem for the cruise missile is the development of image processing techniques applicable to target acquisition for an autonomous terminal homing system which depends upon an on-board comparison of a sensed scene with a stored replica of a predesignated target area. Extensive efforts are currently in progress to develop algorithms based upon area correlation and feature matching techniques for accurate registration of sensed and reference imagery. Image intensity matching depends upon several unpredictable factors such as time of day or year, weather, changes in scale, viewpoint, and perspective, spectral and sensor characteristics, etc. In contrast, one of the most invariant properties of a scene is its geometric form. A sensed height distribution of a target scene can be determined passively from dynamic imagery by exploitation of the concept of motion stereo: over a sequence of frames, the scene is continuously viewed from changing observation points as the vehicle moves. The accuracy to which elevations can be determined is based upon sensor and vehicle parameters, geometry, image characteristics, and the nature of the processing algorithms. In principle, all that is required for depth determination is a single pair of frames. In practice, however, real imagery is corrupted by noise, sensor jitter, imperfect knowledge of vehicle trajectory, etc., and it is necessary to infer elevation from a successively refined statistical best estimate obtained from averaging results over several pairs of frames. Preliminary results of motion stereo process-ing to obtain object depth from image coordinate trajectories (obtained by correlation tracking) will be described, and efforts to extend the techniques to computationally efficient methods of area processing will be discussed.

Citation Download Citation

William B. Lacina and William Q. Nicholson "Passive Determination Of Three-Dimensional Form From Dynamic Imagery", Proc. SPIE 0186, Digital Processing of Aerial Images, (4 September 1979); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.957513

ACCESS THE FULL ARTICLE

INSTITUTIONAL
Select your institution to access the SPIE Digital Library.

SELECT YOUR INSTITUTION

PERSONAL
Sign in with your SPIE account to access your personal subscriptions or to use specific features such as save to my library, sign up for alerts, save searches, etc.

PERSONAL SIGN IN

No SPIE Account? Create one

PURCHASE THIS CONTENT

SUBSCRIBE TO DIGITAL LIBRARY

50 downloads per 1-year subscription

Members: $195

Non-members: $335 ADD TO CART

25 downloads per 1 - year subscription

Members: $145

Non-members: $250 ADD TO CART

PURCHASE SINGLE ARTICLE

Includes PDF, HTML & Video, when available