3D Scene Reconstruction Based on Robust Camera Motion Estimation and Space Sweeping for a Cultural Heritage Virtual Tour System

An efficient 3D reconstruction technique based on robust camera motion estimation and an improved version of the space-sweeping stereo reconstruction approach is presented. The proposed approach is focused on generation of usable and fully automatic reconstruction of wide-area scenes with the computational resources of a conventional PC. The aim is to use this technique to capture such scenes in 3D utilizing off-the-shelf equipment. Color information is finally added to the derived 3D model of the scene and the result can be converted to common 3D scene modeling formats. The 3D models are integrated with GIS technologies within a web-based virtual tour system.