Using neural networks for 3d surface structure estimation based on real-world data for autonomous systems and applications

Abstract

In various examples, to support training a deep neural network (DNN) to predict a dense representation of a 3D surface structure of interest, a training dataset is generated from real-world data. For example, one or more vehicles may collect image data and LiDAR data while navigating through a real-world environment. To generate input training data, 3D surface structure estimation may be performed on captured image data to generate a sparse representation of a 3D surface structure of interest (e.g., a 3D road surface). To generate corresponding ground truth training data, captured LiDAR data may be smoothed, subject to outlier removal, subject to triangulation to filling missing values, accumulated from multiple LiDAR sensors, aligned with corresponding frames of image data, and/or annotated to identify 3D points on the 3D surface of interest, and the identified 3D points may be projected to generate a dense representation of the 3D surface structure.