SCALE ERROR CORRECTION IN A GEO-REFERENCED MULTI-DIMENSIONAL MODEL

• US 20150221128A1
• Filed: 01/30/2015
• Published: 08/06/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 01/31/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Hover Inc. (Tucows Incorporated)
• Original Assignee: Hover Inc. (Tucows Incorporated)
• Inventors: Bhatawadekar, Vineet, Sun, Shaohui, Pavlidis, Ioannis, Altman, Adam J.
• Granted Patent: US 9,478,031 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/283 Multi-dimensional databases or data warehouses, e.g. MOLAP or ROLAP
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/583 using metadata automatically derived from the content
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 11/60 Editing figures and text; Combining figures or text
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 17/05 Geographic models
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 19/20 Editing of 3D images, e.g. changing shapes or colours, aligning objects or positioning parts
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2200/04 involving 3D image data
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2207/30184 Infrastructure
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2210/04 Architectural design, interior design
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2219/2016 Rotation, translation, scaling
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 7/12 Edge-based segmentation
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 7/13 Edge detection

Abstract

A system and method is provided for identifying error and rescaling and constructing or reconstructing a multi-dimensional (e.g., 3D) building model using street-level imagery. Street-level imagery is used to identify architectural elements that have known architectural standard dimensions. Dimensional measurements of architectural elements in the multi-dimensional building model (poorly scaled) are compared with known architectural standard dimensions to rescale and construct/reconstruct an accurate multi-dimensional building model.

Claims

1. A method of rescaling a multi-dimensional model comprising:

retrieving a street-level image for a building model;

identifying a plurality of boundaries for an architectural element within the street-level image;

defining the plurality of boundaries for the architectural element;

measuring a distance between two or more of the plurality of boundaries of the architectural element;

comparing the measured distance against one or more known dimensions, within a threshold of error, of at least one similar architectural element;

determining an error in scaling of the street-level image based on the comparing; and

rescaling the building model accordingly to correct for the determined error.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising reconstructing the rescaled multi-dimensional building model.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the plurality of boundaries are defined automatically or manually.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the plurality of boundaries are defined by a plurality of geo-referenced pixels.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the architectural element includes siding row(s), door(s), brick(s), window(s) or other architectural elements having known architectural standard dimensions.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the retrieved street-level image includes two or more architectural elements.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the comparing further includes comparing against a plurality of sizes of the at least one similar architectural element.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the determining an error further includes selecting from the plurality of sizes the at least one similar architectural element which is dimensionally closest to the architectural element and within the threshold of error.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the dimensions include any of:

width, height, width and height, area, or a ratio of width-to-height or height-to-width.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the retrieved street-level images are rectified and correlated to vertices of geometric planes or polygons from the multi-dimensional model.

11. A system for rescaling a multi-dimensional model comprising:

an image database operable to retrieve a street-level image corresponding to a building model; and

an image processor communicatively coupled to the image database and operable to;

identify a plurality of boundaries for an architectural element within the street-level image;

define the plurality of boundaries for the architectural element;

measure a distance between two or more of the plurality of boundaries of the architectural element;

compare the measured distance between the two or more of the plurality of boundaries to a known architectural standard dimension threshold to determine an actual measurement;

determine an error in scaling of the street-level image based on the comparing; and

rescale the building model according to the error.

12. The system of claim 11, wherein the distance measured between the two or more of the plurality of boundaries of the architectural element is extrapolated based on pixel resolution.

13. The system of claim 11, wherein the rescaling is implemented during construction of the multi-dimensional model.

14. The system of claim 11, wherein the architectural element includes:

siding row(s), door(s), brick(s), window(s) or other architectural elements having known architectural standard dimensions.

15. The system of claim 11, further comprising a weighted decision engine predicting the architectural element or elements that would produce an accurately rescaled and reconstructed building model.

16. The system of claim 11, wherein the retrieved street-level image includes two or more architectural elements.

17. A method of determining scale for a multi-dimensional model comprising:

a. retrieving a street-level image for a building model including two or more architectural elements;

b. identifying a plurality of boundaries for one of the two or more architectural elements within the street-level image;

c. defining the plurality of boundaries for the one of the two or more architectural elements;

d. measuring a distance between two or more of the plurality of boundaries of the one of the two or more architectural elements;

e. comparing the measured distance between the two or more of the plurality of boundaries to a known architectural standard dimension threshold to determine an actual measurement;

f. determining an error in scaling of the street-level image based on the comparing; and

g. communicating the error in scaling of the one of the two or more architectural elements for accumulation.

18. The method of claim 17, further comprising repeating steps b through g for each of the two or more architectural elements of the retrieved street-level image.

19. The method of claim 18, wherein the actual measurement is communicated to a weighted decision engine that accumulates a plurality of the actual measurements and the errors in scale for each of the two or more architectural element in the street-level image.

20. The method of claim 19, wherein the weighted decision engine predicts which architectural element of the two or more architectural elements in the street-level image would produce a most accurate rescaled multi-dimensional building model.