Event-aided Direct Sparse Odometry

• Published in: 2022 IEEE/CVF Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR) pp. 5771 - 5780
• Main Authors: Hidalgo-Carrio, Javier, Gallego, Guillermo, Scaramuzza, Davide
• Format: Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Published: IEEE 01.06.2022
• Subjects: Brightness; Bundle adjustment; Codes; Low-level vision; Motion and tracking; Robot vision; Sensitivity; Target tracking; Technological innovation; Tracking loops
• DOI: 10.1109/CVPR52688.2022.00569

We introduce EDS, a direct monocular visual odometry using events and frames. Our algorithm leverages the event generation model to track the camera motion in the blind time between frames. The method formulates a direct probabilistic approach of observed brightness increments. Per-pixel brightness increments are predicted using a sparse number of selected 3D points and are compared to the events via the brightness increment error to estimate camera motion. The method recovers a semi-dense 3D map using photometric bundle adjustment. EDS is the first method to perform 6-DOF VO using events and frames with a direct approach. By design it overcomes the problem of changing appearance in indirect methods. Our results outperform all previous event-based odometry solutions. We also show that, for a target error performance, EDS can work at lower frame rates than state-of-the-art frame-based VO solutions. This opens the door to low-power motion-tracking applications where frames are sparingly triggered "on demand" and our method tracks the motion in between. We release code and datasets to the public.