Finding the 3-D relation between plane surfaces from isoluminance curves-toward world modeling for mobile robots by vision-data fusion

The authors describe a method for finding the 3-D relation between primary plane surfaces in indoor scenes. An indoor scene illuminated by tubular fluorescent lamps and an imaging system like a TV camera were modeled based on lighting engineering knowledge. The 3-D relation between two object surfaces was identified by using the center position of isoluminance curves, which were constructed from the distribution of illumination on each surface. Some experimental results were shown. This method can be used for constructing a 3-D model of an autonomous mobile robot which moves about in a man-made environment and for model-based scene analysis.<>