Image - based Water Surface Reconstruction with Refractive Stereo

Image-based Water Surface Reconstruction with Refractive Stereo Nigel Jed Wesley Morris Master of Science Graduate Department of Computer Science University of Toronto 2004 We present a system for reconstructing water surfaces using an indirect refractive stereo reconstruction method. Our work builds on previous work on image-based water reconstruction that uses single view refractive reconstruction techniques. We combine this approach with a stereo matching algorithm. Depth determination relies upon the refractive disparity of points on a plane below the water. We describe how the location of points on the water surface can be determined by hypothesizing a depth from the refractive disparity of one camera view. Then the second camera view is used to verify the depth. We compare two potential metrics for this matching process. We then present results from our algorithm using both simulated and empirical input, analyzing the results to determine the primary factors that contribute toward accurate surface point determination. We also show how this process can be used to reconstruct sequences of dynamic water and present several result sets.