Opti-Acoustic Stereo Imaging: On System Calibration and 3-D Target Reconstruction

• Published in: IEEE transactions on image processing Vol. 18; no. 6; pp. 1203 - 1214
• Main Authors: Negahdaripour, S., Sekkati, H., Pirsiavash, H.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York, NY IEEE 01-06-2009; Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: 3-D reconstruction; Acoustic imaging; Acoustic measurements; Acoustics; Applied sciences; Calibration; Closed-form solution; Exact sciences and technology; Exact solutions; Image processing; Image reconstruction; Imaging; Information theory; Information, signal and communications theory; Mathematical analysis; Mathematical models; Optical imaging; Reconstruction; Sensor integration; Shape measurement; Signal and communications theory; Signal processing; Signal representation. Spectral analysis; Signal, noise; Stereo image processing; stereovision; Telecommunications and information theory; Three dimensional displays; Underwater acoustics; underwater sonar imaging; Image processing; stereovision; Epipolar geometry; Image reconstruction; Azimuth; Image matching; Acoustic imaging; Imaging; Conical shape; Acoustic image; Range finding; Computer simulation; Stereo image processing; Image retrieval; Imager; Information retrieval; Calibration; Noisy image; 3-D reconstruction; underwater sonar imaging; Image analysis; Optical image; Scene analysis; Recursive method; Pattern recovery; Maximum likelihood; Sensor integration
• ISSN: 1057-7149; 1941-0042
• DOI: 10.1109/TIP.2009.2013081

Utilization of an acoustic camera for range measurements is a key advantage for 3-D shape recovery of underwater targets by opti-acoustic stereo imaging, where the associated epipolar geometry of optical and acoustic image correspondences can be described in terms of conic sections. In this paper, we propose methods for system calibration and 3-D scene reconstruction by maximum likelihood estimation from noisy image measurements. The recursive 3-D reconstruction method utilized as initial condition a closed-form solution that integrates the advantages of two other closed-form solutions, referred to as the range and azimuth solutions. Synthetic data tests are given to provide insight into the merits of the new target imaging and 3-D reconstruction paradigm, while experiments with real data confirm the findings based on computer simulations, and demonstrate the merits of this novel 3-D reconstruction paradigm.