Wide-Angle Image Acquisition, Analysis and Visualisation

Abstract

Recent camera technology provides new solutions for wide-angle image acquisition. Multi- or single-line cameras have been designed for spaceborne and airborne scanners to provide high resolution imagery. Line cameras may also work as panorama scanners, and models of these have already been studied in computer vision for a few years. These cameras or models require studies in calibration, registration and epipolar geometry to ensure accurate imaging and stereo analysis. The resulting images or depth maps also allow new approaches in 3D scene visualisation. The paper informs about line camera models and camera hardware, the historic background in photogrammetry and aerial mapping, calibration of line cameras, registration of captured images, epipolar geometry for along-track and panoramic stereo, stereo matching with a focus on dynamic programming, and visualisation. The paper illustrates sketched concepts using a few of the high-resolution aerial and panoramic image data.