Complete and Accurate Indoor Scene Capturing and Reconstruction Using a Drone and a Robot

Completeness and accuracy are two important factors in image-based indoor scene 3D reconstruction. Thus, an efficient image capturing scheme that could completely cover the scene, and a robust reconstruction method that could accurately reconstruct the scene are required. To this end, in this article we propose a new pipeline for indoor scene capturing and reconstruction using a mini drone and a ground robot, which takes both capturing completeness and reconstruction accuracy into consideration. First, we use a mini drone to capture aerial video of the indoor scene, from which a 3D aerial map is reconstructed. Then, the robot moving path is planned and a set of ground-view reference images are synthesized from the aerial map. After that, the robot enters the scene and captures ground video autonomously while using the reference images to locate its position during the movement. Finally, the ground and aerial images, which are adaptively extracted from the captured videos, are merged to reconstruct a complete and accurate indoor scene model. Experimental results on two indoor scenes demonstrate the effectiveness and robustness of our proposed indoor scene capturing and reconstruction pipeline.