ProFORMA : 3d Modeling from Video

Similar to Strata’s Foto3D CX tool, ProFORMA can reconstruct a virtual model of a physical object from live video and then augment the live video with the wireframe version.  Created by Qi Pan, Gerhard Reitmayr and Tom Drummond of the Cambridge University Engineering Department, the project is the winner of the ISMAR 2009 Best Demo Prize.

The generation of 3D models is very useful for many computer vision applications. This paper introduces ProFORMA, a system designed to enable on-line reconstruction of textured 3D objects rotated by a user's hand. Partial models are created very rapidly and displayed to the user to aid view planning, as well as used by the system to robustly track the object pose. The system works by calculating the Delaunay tetrahedralisation of a point cloud obtained from on-line structure from motion estimation which is then carved using a recursive and probabilistic algorithm to rapidly obtain the surface mesh.

See a demonstration video after the break.

via Cambridge University Engineering Department – Qi Pan.

This story written by Randall Hand

Randall Hand is a computer graphics programmer and news junky that's been working in the field for the last 15 years. He's responsible for visualizations generated on some of the most powerful supercomputers in the world, ytnef, mullion support in ParaView, and VizWorld.com.