A Facade Tracking System for Outdoor Augmented Reality

Abstract

We describe a real-time facade tracking system that uses, as setup information, only two images of a facade, captured on the moment. No more previous information is needed, such as a facade 3D model, dimensions or aspect ratio. Feature points and their local descriptors are extracted from that pair of images and used during the detection and tracking of the facade. Additionally, parallax and topological information is also used in order to increase the overall robustness of the tracking process. Experiments show that the system can detect and track a wide variety of facades, including those that are not entirely planar, partially occluded or have few distinguishable visual landmarks. The reliance on on-the-spot information, alone, makes this system useful for Outdoor Augmented Reality applications, in an Anywhere Augmentation urban context.