Automatic 3D reconstruction: An exploration of the state of the art

Presented here in the form of case study examples are the results from a number of practical exercises to explore the state of the art of automatic 3D reconstructions. That is, deriving the underlying geometry of an object or place based only upon photographs. There is a wide range of applications for this technology; traditionally it has been used for landscape/terrain modeling, geology and by the mining industry. The interest here is in capturing geometric data in archaeology, providing a new data format suited to a richer exploration compared to the more traditional photography. Examples of the use of this 3D geometric representation include the population of virtual worlds and gaming engines. The manual generation of such assets is normally both time consuming and can involve an element interpretation on the part of a human modeler.