Abstract

The problem of pose estimation arises in many areas of computer vision, including object recognition, object tracking, site inspection and updating, and autonomous navigation using scene models. We present a new algorithm, called SoftPOSIT, for determining the pose of a 3D object from a single 2D image in the case that correspondences between model points and image points are unknown. The algorithm combines Gold’s iterative SoftAssign algorithm [19, 20] for computing correspondences and DeMenthon’s iterative POSIT algorithm [13] for computing object pose under a full-perspective camera model. Our algorithm, unlike most previous algorithms for this problem, does not have to hypothesize small sets of matches and then verify the remaining image points. Instead, all possible matches are treated identically throughout the search for an optimal pose. The performance of the algorithm is extensively evaluated in Monte Carlo simulations on synthetic data under a variety of levels of clutter, occlusion, and image noise. These tests show that the algorithm performs well in a variety of difficult scenarios, and empirical evidence suggests that the algorithm has a run-time complexity that is better than previous methods by a factor equal to the number of image points. The algorithm is being applied to the practical problem of autonomous vehicle navigation in a city through registration of a 3D architectural models of buildings to images obtained from an on-board camera.