3D modeling of outdoor environments by integrating omnidirectional range and color images

This paper describes a 3D modeling method for wide area outdoor environments which is based on integrating omnidirectional range and color images. In the proposed method, outdoor scenes can be efficiently digitized by an omnidirectional laser rangefinder which can obtain a 3D shape with high-accuracy and by an omnidirectional multi-camera system (OMS) which can capture a high-resolution color image. Multiple range images are registered by minimizing the distances between corresponding points in the different range images. In order to register multiple range images stably, points on plane portions detected from the range data are used in registration process. The position and orientation acquired by RTK-GPS and gyroscope are used as initial values of simultaneous registration. The 3D model obtained by registration of range data is mapped by textures selected from omnidirectional images in consideration of the resolution of texture and occlusions of the model. In experiments, we have carried out 3D modeling of our campus with the proposed method.