Acquisition of high quality planar patch features

Abstract

Camera-based tracking systems which reconstruct a feature map with structure from motion or SLAM techniques highly depend on the ability to track a single feature in different scales, different lighting conditions and a wide range of viewing angles. The acquisition of high quality features is therefore indispensable for a continuous tracking of a feature with a maximum possible range of valid appearances. We present a tracking system where not only the position of a feature but also its surface normal is reconstructed and used for precise prediction and tracking recovery of lost features. The appearance of a reference patch is also estimated sequentially and refined during the tracking, which leads to a more stable feature tracking step. Such reconstructed reference templates can be used for tracking a camera pose with a great variety of viewing positions. This feature reconstruction process is combined with a feature management system, where a statistical analysis of the ability to track a feature is performed, and only the most stable features for a given camera viewing position are used for the 2D feature tracking step. This approach results in a map of high quality features, where the the real time capabilities can be preserved by only tracking the most necessary 2D feature points. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2008.