PhotoSketch: a photocentric urban 3D modeling system

Online mapping services from Google, Apple, and Microsoft are exceedingly popular applications for exploring 3D urban cities. Their explosive growth provides impetus for photorealistic 3D modeling of urban scenes. Although classical algorithms such as multiview stereo and laser range scanners are traditional sources for detailed 3D models of existing structures, they generate heavyweight models that are not appropriate for the streaming data that these navigation applications leverage. Instead, lightweight models as produced by interactive image-based tools are better suited for this domain. The contribution of this work is that it merges the benefits of multiview geometry, an intuitive sketching interface, and dynamic texture mapping to produce lightweight photorealistic 3D models of buildings. We present experimental results from urban scenes using our PhotoSketch system.