Active Stereo Reconstruction using Deep Learning

Abstract: Depth estimation using stereo images is an important task in many computer vision applications. A stereo camera contains two image sensors that observe the scene from slightly different viewpoints, making it possible to find the depth of the scene. An active stereo camera also uses a laser projector that projects a pattern into the scene. The advantage of the laser pattern is the additional texture that gives better depth estimations in dark and textureless areas.  Recently, deep learning methods have provided new solutions producing state-of-the-art performance in stereo reconstruction. The aim of this project was to investigate the behavior of a deep learning model for active stereo reconstruction, when using data from different cameras. The model is self-supervised, which solves the problem of having enough ground truth data for training the model. It instead uses the known relationship between the left and right images to let the model learn the best estimation. The model was separately trained on datasets from three different active stereo cameras. The three trained models were then compared using evaluation images from all three cameras. The results showed that the model did not always perform better on images from the camera that was used for collecting the training data. However, when comparing the results of different models using the same test images, the model that was trained on images from the camera used for testing gave better results in most cases.