Mobile Camera Localization Using Aerial-view Images

• Published in: Information and Media Technologies Vol. 9; no. 4; pp. 896 - 904
• Main Authors: Toriya, Hisatoshi, Kitahara, Itaru, Ohta, Yuichi
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Tokyo Information and Media Technologies Editorial Board 01.01.2014; Japan Science and Technology Agency
• Subjects: aerial-view; Cameras; Estimates; GIS; image features; image stitching; Inertia; keypoint matching; mobile camera localization; Orientation; Stitching; Tablets
• ISSN: 1881-0896
• DOI: 10.11185/imt.9.896

This paper proposes a method to estimate a mobile camera's position and orientation by referring to the corresponding points between aerial-view images from a GIS database and mobile camera images. The mobile camera images are taken from the user's viewpoint, and the aerial-view images include the same region. To increase the correspondence accuracy, we generate a virtual top-view image that virtually captures the target region overhead of the user by using the intrinsic parameters of the mobile camera and the inertia (gravity) information. We find corresponding points between the virtual top-view and aerial-view images and estimate a homography matrix that transforms the virtual top-view image into aerial-view image. Finally, the mobile camera's position and orientation are estimated by analyzing the matrix. In some cases, however, it is difficult to obtain a sufficient number of correct corresponding points to estimate the correct homography matrix by capturing only a single virtual top-view image. We solve this problem by stitching virtual top-view images to represent a larger ground region. We experimentally implemented our method on a tablet PC and evaluated its effectiveness.