Shape-from-silhouette/stereo and its application to 3-D digitizer

Abstract

A novel three-dimensional reconstruction algorithm "Shape from-Silhouette/Stereo (SFS2)" is presented in this paper. This algorithm combines Shape-from-Silhouette with stereo based on simple voting localizing operations in a voxel space. In this algorithm, Shape-from Silhouette roughly estimates the shape of the target object first, and then multi-eye stereo is applied within the estimated area to refine the shape. This algorithm overcomes the shortcomings of each algorithm and offers the following: 1) More precise shape reconstruction than simple Shape-from-Silhouette; 2) Quicker processing than simple stereo-based reconstruction; and 3) Better noise reduction than multi-eye stereo. Our experiments showed that SFS2 is highly practical for generating 3D models of real objects.