Methods for Volumetric Reconstruction of Visual Scenes

In this paper, we present methods for 3D volumetric reconstruction of visual scenes photographed by multiple calibrated cameras placed at arbitrary viewpoints. Our goal is to generate a 3D model that can be rendered to synthesize new photo-realistic views of the scene. We improve upon existing voxel coloring/space carving approaches by introducing new ways to compute visibility and photo-consistency, as well as model infinitely large scenes. In particular, we describe a visibility approach that uses all possible color information from the photographs during reconstruction, photo-consistency measures that are more robust and/or require less manual intervention, and a volumetric warping method for application of these reconstruction methods to large-scale scenes.