Automatic Model Refinement for 3D Reconstruction with Mobile Robots

Precise digital 3D models of indoor environments are needed in several applications, e.g., facility management, architecture, rescue and inspection robotics. This paper presents a new algorithm that transforms a 3D volumetric model into a very precise compact 3D map and generates semantic descriptions. Our system is composed of a robust, autonomous mobile robot for the automatic data acquisition and a precise, cost effective, high quality 3D laser scanner to gage indoor environments. The reconstruction method consists of reliable scan matching and feature detection algorithms. The 3D scene is matched against a coarse semantic description of general indoor environments and the generated knowledge is used to refine the 3D model.