The generation of 3-D models of outdoor objects from uncalibrated still images

The generation of 3-D models is a fundamental part of computer graphics and often requires many hours of skilled labour or the use of very expensive equipment. With the increasing demand for virtual environments and objects to populate them, convenient 3-D model generation has become a very important problem to be solved. Generating 3-D models of large outdoor structures poses particular problems because of difficulties with the calibration of images and lack of control over the environment. This paper proposes a multi-part algorithm that enables the generation of 3-D models from a small set of images of outdoor structures without calibration. The images are captured using a standard digital stills camera and the process requires no specialised equipment or skilled user input