An Application of Markov Random Fields to Range Sensing

James Diebel and Sebastian Thrun

This paper describes a highly successful application of MRFs to the problem of generating high-resolution range images. A new generation of range sensors combines the capture of low-resolution range images with the acquisition of registered high-resolution camera images. The MRF in this paper exploits the fact that discontinuities in range and coloring tend to co-align. This enables it to generate high-resolution, low-noise range images by integrating regular camera images into the range data. We show that by using such an MRF, we can substantially improve over existing range imaging technology.

The full paper is available in PDF and gzipped Postscript

@INPROCEEDINGS{Diebel05b,
  AUTHOR	= {J. Diebel and S. Thrun },
  TITLE		= {An Application of Markov Random Fields to Range Sensing},
  YEAR		= {2005},
  BOOKTITLE	= {Proceedings of Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NIPS)},
  PUBLISHER	= {MIT Press},
  ADDRESS	= {Cambridge, MA}
}