Section: Research Program

Camera Calibration and Registration

One of the most basic problems currently limiting Augmented Reality applications is the registration problem. The objects in the real and virtual worlds must be properly aligned with respect to each other, or the illusion that the two worlds coexist will be compromised.

As a large number of potential AR applications are interactive, real time pose computation is required. Although the registration problem has received a lot of attention in the computer vision community, the problem of real-time registration is still far from being a solved problem, especially for unstructured environments. Ideally, an AR system should work in all environments, without the need to prepare the scene ahead of time, and the user should walk anywhere he pleases.

For several years, the Magrit project has been aiming at developing on-line and marker-less methods for camera pose computation. In particular, we have proposed a real-time system for camera tracking designed for indoor scenes [1] . The main difficulty with on-line tracking is to ensure robustness of the process. For off-line processes, robustness is achieved by using spatial and temporal coherence of the considered sequence through move-matching techniques. To get robustness for open-loop systems, we have developed a method which combines the advantage of move-matching methods and model-based methods by using a piecewise-planar model of the environment. This methodology can be used in a wide variety of environments: indoor scenes, urban scenes .... We are also concerned with the development of methods for camera stabilization. Indeed, statistical fluctuations in the viewpoint computations lead to unpleasant jittering or sliding effects, especially when the camera motion is small. We have proved that the use of model selection allows us to noticeably improve the visual impression and to reduce drift over time.

The success of pose computation largely depends on the quality of the matching stage over the sequence. Research are conducted in the team on the use of probabilistic methods to establish robust correspondences of features over time. The use of a contrario decision is under investigation to achieve this aim [7] . We especially address the complex case of matching in scenes with repeated patterns which are common in urban scenes. We also consider learning based techniques to improve the robustness of the matching stage.

Another way to improve the reliability and the robustness of pose algorithms is to combine the camera with another form of sensor in order to compensate for the shortcomings of each technology. Each technology approach has limitations: on the one hand, rapid head motions cause image features to undergo large motion between frames that may cause visual tracking to fail. On the other hand, inertial sensors response is largely independent from the user's motion but their accuracy is bad and their response is sensitive to metallic objects in the scene. In past works [1] , we have proposed a system that makes an inertial sensor cooperate with the camera-based system in order to improve the robustness of the AR system to abrupt motions of the users, especially head motions. This work contributes to the reduction of the constraints on the users and the need to carefully control the environment during an AR application. Ongoing research on such hybrid systems are under consideration in our team with the aim to improve the accuracy of reconstruction techniques as well as to obtain dynamic models of organs in medical applications.

Finally, it must be noted that the registration problem must be addressed from the specific point of view of augmented reality: the success and the acceptance of an AR application does not only depend on the accuracy of the pose computation but also on the visual impression of the augmented scene. The search for the best compromise between accuracy and perception is therefore an important issue in this project. This research topic has been addressed in our project both in classical AR and in medical imaging in order to choose the camera model, including intrinsic parameters, which describes at best the considered camera.