Efficient city-sized 3D reconstruction from ultra-high resolution aerial and ground video imagery

Abstract

This paper introduces an approach for geo-registered, dense 3D reconstruction of city-sized scenes using a combination of ultra-high resolution aerial and ground video imagery. While 3D reconstructions from ground imagery provide high-detail street-level views of a city, they do not completely cover the entire city scene and might have distortions due to GPS drift. Such a reconstruction can be complemented by aerial imagery to capture missing scene surfaces as well as improve geo-registration. We present a computationally efficient method for 3D reconstruction of city-sized scenes using both aerial and ground video imagery to obtain a more complete and self-consistent geo-registered 3D city model. The reconstruction results of a 1x1km city area, covered with a 66 Mega-pixel airborne system along with a 60 Mega-pixel ground camera system, are presented and validated to geo-register to within 3m to prior airborne-collected LiDAR data. © 2011 Springer-Verlag.