3D reconstruction by combining shape from silhouette with stereo

In this paper we propose a 3D reconstruction algorithm by combining shape from silhouette with stereo. Visual hull of the object is first derived from multi-view silhouette images. Pairwise stereo matching for shape refinement is then accomplished using the best viewable images. Based on the reduced correspondence searching range constrained by contact points and bounding edges, significant improvement of visual hull is possible even if the number of cameras is limited. Experimental results are presented for both synthetic data and real scene images.