Cut-and-Fold: Automatic 3D modeling from a single image

This paper presents a novel approach to automatically generate a plausible 3D model from a single outdoor image. Outdoor scene can be modeled as a set of planar billboards such as ground, sky and vertical trees or buildings. This Cut-and-Fold system takes the advantages of the statistical classification method for high-level geometric labeling of the image regions and the automatic image segmentation algorithm for detailed boundaries of the geometric regions to generate accurate geometric labeling and realistic rendering of novel views. Taking a single image as input, our method first roughly classifies each sub-region to the geometric categories: vertical, ground or sky. Then image segmentation algorithm is employed to refine the labeling results and generate accurate boundaries for the geometric regions. After cutting the image into several regions with their geometric labels, the system folds the regions into 3D billboards with accurate boundaries. The experimental results demonstrate that our method is capable of creating plausible 3D models automatically for a wide range of outdoor scenes.