Robust scene reconstruction from an omnidirectional vision system

In this paper we present an efficient multi-baseline stereo algorithm for panoramic image data. We derive a parameterization of epipolar curves in terms of inverse depth. As a result the search for image correspondences across multiple images can be performed efficiently. Furthermore, depth estimates are obtained directly thus bypassing the need to perform explicit stereoscopic triangulation. We apply our method to obtain a 3D reconstruction of an environment from a set of panoramic images. The images are acquired by a single omni-directional vision sensor mounted on top of our mobile robot during navigation. Experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach.