• Journal of Broadcast Engineering
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• v.9 no.3
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• pp.185-195
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• 2004

This paper presents a multi-depth map fusion method for the 3D scene reconstruction. It fuses depth maps obtained from the stereo matching technique and the depth camera. Traditional stereo matching techniques that estimate disparities between two images often produce inaccurate depth map because of occlusion and homogeneous area. Depth map obtained from the depth camera is globally accurate but noisy and provide a limited depth range. In order to get better depth estimates than these two conventional techniques, we propose a depth map fusion method that fuses the multi-depth maps from stereo matching and the depth camera. We first obtain two depth maps generated from the stereo matching of 3-view images. Moreover, a depth map is obtained from the depth camera for the center-view image. After preprocessing each depth map, we select a depth value for each pixel among them. Simulation results showed a few improvements in some background legions by proposed fusion technique.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Telematics and Electronics S
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• v.35S no.9
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• pp.53-62
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• 1998

In this paper, a genetic algorithm-based optimization technique for stereo matching is proposed. Stereo matching is an essential process to recover three-dimensional structure of objects. The proposed two-dimensional chromosomes consist fo disparity values. The cost function of each chromosome is composed of the intensity-difference between two images and smoothness of disparity. The crossover and mutation operators in the two-dimensional chromosomes are described. The operations are affected by the disparities of neighbor pixels. The knowledge-augmented operators are shown to result in rapid convergence and stable result. The genetic algorithm for stereo matching is tested on synthetic and natural images. Experimental results of various images show that the proposed algorithm has good performance even if the images have too dense or sparse feature points. severe noise, and repeating pattern.

• Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.99-111
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• 2010

This paper proposes an efficient hardware architecture to estimate disparities between 2D images for generating 3D depth images in a stereo vision system. Stereo matching methods are classified into global and local methods. The local matching method uses the cost functions based on pixel windows such as SAD(sum of absolute difference), SSD(sum of squared difference) and NCC(normalized cross correlation). The NCC-based cost function is less susceptible to differences in noise and lighting condition between left and right images than the subtraction-based functions such as SAD and SSD, and for this reason, the NCC is preferred to the other functions. However, software-based implementations are not adequate for the NCC-based real-time stereo matching, due to its numerous complex operations. Therefore, we propose a fast pipelined hardware architecture suitable for real-time operations of the NCC function. By adopting a block-based box-filtering scheme to perform NCC operations in parallel, the proposed architecture improves processing speed compared with the previous researches. In this architecture, it takes almost the same number of cycles to process all the pixels, irrespective of the window size. Also, the simulation results show that its disparity estimation has low error rate.

• Journal of Korean Society for Geospatial Information Science
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.11-17
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• 2013

Nowadays 3D models are used in diverse sectors. The 3D maps provide better reality than existing plane maps as well as diverse pieces of information that cannot be expected from the limited plane maps. A process proposed in this paper enables easy and quick production by replacing the expensive laser scanners for modeling by an improved digital camera stereo matching algorithm. The algorithm used in this study was a SURF algorithm contained in the OpenCV library. The unconformity points of the algorithm were eliminated using the homography conversion and epipolar lines. In addition, the improved algorithm was compared with the commercial program, and it showed a better performance than the commercial program. It is expected that the proposed method can contribute to the digital maps and 3D virtual reality because it enables easy and quick 3D modeling provided that the stereo matching conditions are met.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Information and Commucation Sciences Conference
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• 2013.05a
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• pp.635-637
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• 2013

This paper proposed a new hardware architecture for stereo matching in real time. We minimized the amount of calculation and the number of memory accesses through analyzing calculation of stereo matching. From this, we proposed a new stereo matching calculating cell and a new hardware architecture by expanding it in parallel, which concurrently calculates cost function for all pixels in a search range. After expanding it, we proposed a new hardware architecture to calculate cost function for 2-dimensional region. The implemented hardware can be operated with minimum 250Mhz clock frequence in FPGA environment, and has the performance of 813fps in case of the search range of 64 pixels and the image size of $640{\times}480$.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Surveying, Geodesy, Photogrammetry and Cartography
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• v.35 no.2
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• pp.75-80
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• 2017

Recently, there has been growing interest in spatial data that combines information and communication technology with smart cities. The high-precision LiDAR (Light Dectection and Ranging) equipment is mainly used to collect three-dimensional spatial data, and the acquired data is also used to model geographic features and to manage plant construction and cultural heritages which require precision. The LiDAR equipment can collect precise data, but also has limitations because they are expensive and take long time to collect data. On the other hand, in the field of computer vision, research is being conducted on the methods of acquiring image data and performing 3D reconstruction based on image data without expensive equipment. Thus, precise 3D spatial data can be constructed efficiently by collecting and processing image data using CCTVs which are installed as infrastructure facilities in smart cities. However, this method can have an accuracy problem compared to the existing equipment. In this study, experiments were conducted and the results were analyzed to increase the number of extracted matching points by applying the feature-based method and the area-based method in order to improve the precision of 3D spatial data built with image data acquired from stereo CCTVs. For techniques to extract matching points, SIFT algorithm and PATCH algorithm were used. If precise 3D reconstruction is possible using the image data from stereo CCTVs, it will be possible to collect 3D spatial data with low-cost equipment and to collect and build data in real time because image data can be easily acquired through the Web from smart-phones and drones.

• Spatial Information Research
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.193-206
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• 2008

If stereo images is used for Digital Elevation Model (DEM) generation, a DEM is generally made by matching left image against right image from stereo images. In stereo matching, tie-points are used as initial match candidate points. The number and distribution of tie-points influence the matching result. DEM made from matching result has errors such as holes, peaks, etc. These errors are usually interpolated by neighbored pixel values. In this paper, we propose the DEM generation method combined with automatic tie-points extraction using existing DEM, image pyramid, and interpolating new DEM using existing DEM for more reliable DEM. For test, we used IKONOS, QuickBird, SPOT5 stereo images and a DTED level 2 data. The test results show that the proposed method automatically makes reliable DEMs. For DEM validation, we compared heights of DEM by proposed method with height of existing DTED level 2 data. In comparison result, RMSE was under than 15 m.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics and Information Engineers
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• v.54 no.2
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• pp.99-105
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• 2017

Generally, stereo matching methods are used to estimate depth information based on color and spatial similarity. However, most depth estimation methods suffer from the occlusion region because occlusion regions cause inaccurate depth information. Moreover, they do not consider the temporal dimension when estimating the disparity. In this paper, we propose a temporal stereo matching method, considering occlusion and disregarding inaccurate temporal depth information. First, we apply a global stereo matching algorithm to estimate the depth information, we segment the image to occlusion and non-occlusion regions. After occlusion detection, we fill the occluded region with a reasonable disparity value that are obtained from neighboring pixels of the current pixel. Then, we apply a temporal disparity estimation method using the reliable information. Experimental results show that our method detects more accurate occlusion regions, compared to a conventional method. The proposed method increases the temporal consistency of estimated disparity maps and outperforms per-frame methods in noisy images.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics and Information Engineers
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• v.52 no.4
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• pp.164-174
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• 2015

In a real scenario, radiometric change has frequently occurred in the stereo image acquisition process using multiple cameras with geometric characteristics or moving a single camera because it has different camera parameters and illumination change. Conventional stereo matching algorithms have a difficulty in finding correct corresponding points because it is assumed that corresponding pixels have similar color values. In this paper, we present a new method based on the local descriptor reflecting intensity, gradient and texture information. Furthermore, an adaptive weight for local descriptor based on the entropy is applied to estimate correct corresponding points under radiometric variation. The proposed method is tested on Middlebury datasets with radiometric changes, and compared with state-of-the-art algorithms. Experimental result shows that the proposed scheme outperforms other comparison algorithms around 5% less matching error on average.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.35 no.3
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• pp.401-413
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• 2019

The purpose of this study is to generate DSM using the stereo matching algorithm of worldview-1 stereo images and verify the accuracy of the generated DSM. To generate DSM, RPC block modeling was performed to correct RPC errors, and image matching was performed using SGM, which is a stereo matching algorithm after the epipolar image was generated. The COST for SGM was calculated by using CENSUS, and 4-paths and 8-paths were applied for COST aggregation in SGM. To verify the quality and accuracy of the generated DSM, it was compared with the LiDAR-derived DSM and the DSM generated by commercial SW. The results showed that the vertical accuracy of the generated DSM using 4-paths of COST aggregation was 1.647 m to 3.689 m (RMSE). In case of using 8-paths of COST aggregation was 1.550 m to 3.106 m (RMSE).