Geoaccurate 3-dimensional reconstruction via image-based geometry

Recent technological advances in computing capabilities and persistent surveillance systems have led to increased focus on new methods of exploiting geospatial data, bridging traditional photogrammetric techniques and state-of-the-art multiple view geometry methodology. The structure from motion (SfM) problem in Computer Vision addresses scene reconstruction from uncalibrated cameras, and several methods exist to remove the inherent projective ambiguity. However, the reconstruction remains in an arbitrary world coordinate frame without knowledge of its relationship to a fixed earth-based coordinate system. This work presents a novel approach for obtaining geoaccurate image-based 3-dimensional reconstructions in the absence of ground control points by using a SfM framework and the full physical sensor model of the collection system. Absolute position and orientation information provided by the imaging platform can be used to reconstruct the scene in a fixed world coordinate system. Rather than triangulating pixels from multiple image-to-ground functions, each with its own random error, the relative reconstruction is computed via image-based geometry, i.e., geometry derived from image feature correspondences. In other words, the geolocation accuracy is improved using the relative distances provided by the SfM reconstruction. Results from the Exelis Wide-Area Motion Imagery (WAMI) system are provided to discuss conclusions and areas for future work.