Open Source Structure-from-Motion for Aerial Video

Matthew J. Leotta, Eric Smith, Matthew Dawkins, Paul Tunison

Abstract:

Structure-from-motion (SfM) is a well-studied problem
in the computer vision field and is of particular interest for
aerial imaging applications like mapping, terrain modeling,
crop monitoring, etc. With the current rapid growth in the
commercial UAV and small satellite markets, aerial SfM is
becoming even more important. In recent years, free and
open source software has enabled almost anyone to apply
SfM to their data at no cost. Existing free packages are
oriented toward processing unordered collections of photographs
and are less efficient at processing ordered collections
or video. They are also prone to failure with nearly
planar scenes that often arise in aerial photography. While
commercial solutions for aerial SfM exist, they are proprietary
and expensive.
This paper presents a new open source software toolkit
named MAP-Tk that targets SfM for aerial video. It exploits
temporal continuity and the aerial nature of the data
to speed up and improve feature tracking, loop closure, and
bundle adjustment. The system is highly configurable and
modular. Dynamic plugins provide state-of-the art algorithms
from other open source projects like OpenCV, VXL,
and Ceres Solver. This paper presents the modular system
design, user interface, novel algorithms exploiting aerial
video, and results on various aerial data sets.