In recent years real time active 3D range cameras based on time-of-flight technology using the Photonic-Mixer-Device (PMD) have been developed. Those cameras produce sequences of low-resolution depth images at frame rates comparable to regular video cameras. Hence, spatial resolution is traded against temporal resolution compared to standard laser scanning techniques. In this work an algorithm ...

This paper presents new and improved methods of depth estimation and camera calibration for visual odometry with a focused plenoptic camera. For depth estimation we adapt an algorithm previously used in structure-from-motion approaches to work with images of a focused plenoptic camera. In the raw image of a plenoptic camera, scene patches are recorded in several micro-images under slightly diff...

Given an off-the-shelf camera, one has the freedom to move the camera or play around with its intrinsic parameters such as zoom or aperture settings. We propose a framework for depth estimation from a set of calibrated images, captured under general camera motion and parameter variation. Our framework considers the practical trade-offs in a camera and hence essentially generalizes the more cons...

A novel scheme for depth extraction is achieved using a multiple view ring camera system. The ring camera method captures a series of images of scene from a set of camera locations arranged in a circular ring. Tracking of scene features through this sequence realizes circular feature trajectories. The recovery of depth can be obtained with this method by determining the diameter of the circular...

In this paper we address the problem of automatic arrangement of cameras in a 3D system to enhance the performance of depth acquisition procedure. Lacking ground truth or a priori information, a measure of uncertainty is required to assess the quality of reconstruction. The mathematical model of iso-disparity surfaces provides an efficient way to estimate the depth estimation uncertainty which ...

RGB-D sensors (sensors with RGB camera and Depth camera) are novel sensing systems that capture RGB images along with pixel-wise depth information. Although they are widely used in various applications, RGB-D sensors have significant drawbacks including limited measurement ranges (e.g., within 3 m) and errors in depth measurement increase with distance from the sensor with respect to 3D dense m...

This paper presents a general refinement procedure that enhances any given depth map obtained by passive or active sensing. Given a depth map, either estimated by triangulation methods or directly provided by the sensing system, and its corresponding 2-D image, we correct the depth values by separately treating regions with undesired effects such as empty holes, texture copying or edge blurring...

In recent years consumer-level depth sensors have been adopted in various applications. However, they often produce depth maps at a not very fast frame rate (around 30 frames per second), preventing them from being used for applications like digitizing human performance involving fast motion. On the other hand there are available low-cost faster-rate video cameras. This motivates us to develop ...

We introduce the occlusion camera: a non-pinhole camera with 3D distorted rays. Some of the rays sample surfaces that are occluded in the reference view, while the rest sample visible surfaces. The extra samples alleviate disocclusion errors. The silhouette curves are pushed back, so nearly visible samples become visible. A single occlusion camera covers the entire silhouette of an object, wher...