System and method for “stitching” a plurality of reconstructions of three-dimensional surface features of object(s) in a scene defined relative to respective coordinate systems to relate them to a common coordinate system

Abstract

A system is disclosed for stitching a plurality of reconstructions of three-dimensional surface features of at least one object in a scene to relate the reconstructions to a common coordinate system. Each reconstruction is generated from a plurality of two-dimensional images of the scene, and each reconstruction is defined relative to a respective one of a plurality of reconstruction coordinate systems defined relative to one of the images in the scene. The system generates, from at least some of the images, values for translational and rotational components relating a respective reconstruction coordinate system to the common coordinate system. Thereafter, the system uses the values of the translational and rotational components to convert coordinates of the surface features in the respective reconstruction coordinate systems to the common coordinate system. In embodiments of the system, the common coordinate system is selected to be one of the reconstruction coordinate systems, and the values for translational and rotational components relating the other reconstruction coordinate system(s) to the common coordinate system uses overlapping regions of the images which define the respective reconstruction coordinate systems. In those embodiments, the system first determines the dominate translation that best aligns the largest portions of the image which defines the common coordinate system and the other images, shifts the other images by the amount of the dominate translation and then generates a pixel-to-pixel correspondence to generate a displacement field. From the dominate translation and the displacement field, the system generates the values for the translational and rotational components.