SCENE ANALYSIS USING IMAGE AND RANGE DATA

• US 20120250978A1
• Filed: 12/01/2011
• Published: 10/04/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 12/01/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Trustees Of The University Of Pennsylvania (University of Pennsylvania)
• Original Assignee: Trustees Of The University Of Pennsylvania (University of Pennsylvania)
• Inventors: Taylor, Camillo Jose
• Granted Patent: US 8,867,793 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 382/154
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2207/30241 Trajectory
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 7/11 Region-based segmentation
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 7/292 Multi-camera tracking
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 20/52 Surveillance or monitoring of activities, e.g. for recognising suspicious objects recognising microscopic objects G06V20/69
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/181 for receiving images from a plurality of remote sources

Abstract

Image and range data associated with an image can be processed to estimate planes within the 3D environment in the image. By utilizing image segmentation techniques, image data can identify regions of visible pixels having common features. These regions can be used to candidate regions for fitting planes to the range data based on a RANSAC technique.

Claims

1. A method for identifying a feature in an image comprising steps of:

receiving an image having color image data and depth information;

identifying a first set of segments, including a first segment, in the image using an image segmenting technique;

identifying a first set of 3D points associated with the first segment in the depth information; and

estimating a plane that describes the 3D points associated with the first segment.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of estimating a plane comprises using a RANdom SAmple Consensus to estimate a best fitting plane.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the steps of identifying a first set of 3D points and estimating a plane that describes the 3D points are repeated for each segment in the first set of segments.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of determining a first subset of the first set of segments based on the size of each segment, wherein the steps of identifying a first set of 3D points and estimating a plane that describes the 3D points are repeated for each segment in the first subset of segments.