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RI SEMINAR -- Takeo Kanade

• WHEN: Friday, Sept 2, 1994; 3:30 pm - 5:00 pm Refreshments will be served starting at 3:15 pm
• HERE: ADAMSON WING Auditorium in Baker Hall
• SPEAKER: Takeo Kanade

       U. A. and Helen Whitaker Professor of Computer Science and Robotics
       Director of the Robotics Institute
       Carnegie Mellon University
         

• TITLE: A Video-Rate Stereomachine and Its New Applications

ABSTRACT

Stereo is a method of ranging which uses correspondences between sets of two or more images. Despite a great deal of research in the past two decades which foresaw promise in stereo, progress has been slow towards developing a stereomachine that maps a three-dimensional time-varying scene into a sequence of accurate, dense depth maps. Recently, however, we have been developing a stereomachine which is capable of generating a dense range map, aligned with an intensity (color) image, at video rate. The algorithm is based on the Multiple-Baseline Stereo (MBS) theory, which has been developed and tested at CMU. The prototype system is in operation, generating a 200x200 disparity image with 30 disparity bins (equivalent of 5 bit resolution) at 30 frames/second.

A video-rate stereomachine can open up a new class of applications in robotics, human-computer interface, virtual reality, and entertainment. Stereo has many advantages in these applications. It is passive and it does not emit any radio or light energy. With appropriate imaging geometry, optics, and high-resolution cameras, stereo can produce a dense, precise range image of even distant scenes. Stereo performs sensor fusion inherently; range information is aligned with visual information in the common image coordinates. Stereo depth mapping is scanless and can be as fast as imaging; thus it does not have the problem of apparent shape distortion from which a scanning-based range sensor suffers due to motion during a scan.

This seminar will present the development of the CMU video-rate stereomachine, including some of these new applications, such as tele-presence and virtualized reality.

Host:           Yangsheng Xu (xu+@cs.cmu.edu)
Appointment:    Ava Cruse (avac@cs.cmu.edu)