Direct shape from texture using a parametric surface model and an adaptive filtering technique

In this research, we propose a new iterative shape from texture (SFT) algorithm which extracts accurate surface depth information of a curved object covered with fairly homogeneous texture directly. The shape information can be inferred from the rate of texture distortion depicted in an image, and therefore the modeling of the projection and surface geometry as well as the estimation of local texture variation are crucial in obtaining accurate surface shape of an object. By introducing semi-perspective projection camera model and a parametric surface model, we establish a new SFT problem formulation called the textural irradiance equation which relates the local texture density called textural intensity to finite surface parameters. Moreover, by adopting an adaptive multiscale filtering scheme for local texture density estimation, in which the scale or frequency band of a local edge filter is chosen adaptively according to the local shape information, we greatly enhance the accuracy of the estimation of the projected local texture densities, and the final reconstructed shape. We demonstrate the performance of the proposed algorithm by the test with several synthetic and real texture images