Open Access

Digital cameras are subject to physical, electronic and optic effects that result in errors and noise in the image. These effects include for example a temperature dependent dark current, read noise, optical vignetting or different sensitivities of individual pixels. The task of a radiometric calibration is to reduce these errors in the image and thus improve the quality of the overall application. In this work we present an algorithm for radiometric calibration based on Gaussian processes. Gaussian processes are a regression method widely used in machine learning that is particularly useful in our context. Then Gaussian process regression is used to learn a temperature and exposure time dependent mapping from observed gray-scale values to true light intensities for each pixel. Regression models based on the characteristics of single pixels suffer from excessively high runtime and thus are unsuitable for many practical applications. In contrast, a single regression model for an entire image with high spatial resolution leads to a low quality radiometric calibration, which also limits its practical use. The proposed algorithm is predicated on a partitioning of the pixels such that each pixel partition can be represented by one single regression model without quality loss. Partitioning is done by extracting features from the characteristic of each pixel and using them for lexicographic sorting. Splitting the sorted data into partitions with equal size yields the final partitions, each of which is represented by the partition centers. An individual Gaussian process regression and model selection is done for each partition. Calibration is performed by interpolating the gray-scale value of each pixel with the regression model of the respective partition. The experimental comparison of the proposed approach to classical flat field calibration shows a consistently higher reconstruction quality for the same overall number of calibration frames.

Classification of point clouds by different types of geometric primitives is an essential part in the reconstruction process of CAD geometry. We use support vector machines (SVM) to label patches in point clouds with the class labels tori, ellipsoids, spheres, cones, cylinders or planes. For the classification features based on different geometric properties like point normals, angles, and principal curvatures are used. These geometric features are estimated in the local neighborhood of a point of the point cloud. Computing these geometric features for a random subset of the point cloud yields a feature distribution. Different features are combined for achieving best classification results. To minimize the time consuming training phase of SVMs, the geometric features are first evaluated using linear discriminant analysis (LDA). LDA and SVM are machine learning approaches that require an initial training phase to allow for a subsequent automatic classification of a new data set. For the training phase point clouds are generated using a simulation of a laser scanning device. Additional noise based on an laser scanner error model is added to the point clouds. The resulting LDA and SVM classifiers are then used to classify geometric primitives in simulated and real laser scanned point clouds. Compared to other approaches, where all known features are used for classification, we explicitly compare novel against known geometric features to prove their effectiveness.

Reconstruction of hand-held laser scanner data is used in industry primarily for reverse engineering. Traditionally, scanning and reconstruction are separate steps. The operator of the laser scanner has no feedback from the reconstruction results. On-line reconstruction of the CAD geometry allows for such an immediate feedback. We propose a method for on-line segmentation and reconstruction of CAD geometry from a stream of point data based on means that are updated on-line. These means are combined to define complex local geometric properties, e.g., to radii and center points of spherical regions. Using means of local scores, planar, cylindrical, and spherical segments are detected and extended robustly with region growing. For the on-line computation of the means we use so-called accumulated means. They allow for on-line insertion and removal of values and merging of means. Our results show that this approach can be performed on-line and is robust to noise. We demonstrate that our method reconstructs spherical, cylindrical, and planar segments on real scan data containing typical errors caused by hand-held laser scanners.

Deep neural networks have been successfully applied to problems such as image segmentation, image super-resolution, coloration and image inpainting. In this work we propose the use of convolutional neural networks (CNN) for image inpainting of large regions in high-resolution textures. Due to limited computational resources processing high-resolution images with neural networks is still an open problem. Existing methods separate inpainting of global structure and the transfer of details, which leads to blurry results and loss of global coherence in the detail transfer step. Based on advances in texture synthesis using CNNs we propose patch-based image inpainting by a single network topology that is able to optimize for global as well as detail texture statistics. Our method is capable of filling large inpainting regions, oftentimes exceeding quality of comparable methods for images of high-resolution (2048x2048px). For reference patch look-up we propose to use the same summary statistics that are used in the inpainting process.

Knot placement for curve approximation is a well known and yet open problem in geometric modeling. Selecting knot values that yield good approximations is a challenging task, based largely on heuristics and user experience. More advanced approaches range from parametric averaging to genetic algorithms. In this paper, we propose to use Support Vector Machines (SVMs) to determine suitable knot vectors for B-spline curve approximation. The SVMs are trained to identify locations in a sequential point cloud where knot placement will improve the approximation error. After the training phase, the SVM can assign, to each point set location, a so-called score. This score is based on geometric and differential geometric features of points. It measures the quality of each location to be used as knots in the subsequent approximation. From these scores, the final knot vector can be constructed exploring the topography of the score-vector without the need for iteration or optimization in the approximation process. Knot vectors computed with our approach outperform state of the art methods and yield tighter approximations.