Surface height map estimation from a single image using convolutional neural networks

Abstract

© 2017 SPIE. Surface height map estimation is an important task in high-resolution 3D reconstruction. This task differs from general scene depth estimation in the fact that surface height maps contain more high frequency information or fine details. Existing methods based on radar or other equipments can be used for large-scale scene depth recovery, but might fail in small-scale surface height map estimation. Although some methods are available for surface height reconstruction based on multiple images, e.g. photometric stereo, height map estimation directly from a single image is still a challenging issue. In this paper, we present a novel method based on convolutional neural networks (CNNs) for estimating the height map from a single image, without any equipments or extra prior knowledge of the image contents. Experimental results based on procedural and real texture datasets show the proposed algorithm is effective and reliable.