A Versatile Scene Model with Differentiable Visibility Applied to Generative Pose Estimation

Generative reconstruction methods compute the 3D configuration (such as pose and/or geometry) of a shape by optimizing the overlap of the projected 3D shape model with images. Proper handling of occlusions is a big challenge, since the visibility function that indicates if a surface point is seen from a camera can often not be formulated in closed form, and is in general discrete and non-differentiable at occlusion boundaries. We present a new scene representation that enables an analytically differentiable closed-form formulation of surface visibility. In contrast to previous methods, this yields smooth, analytically differentiable, and efficient to optimize pose similarity energies with rigorous occlusion handling, fewer local minima, and experimentally verified improved convergence of numerical optimization. The underlying idea is a new image formation model that represents opaque objects by a translucent medium with a smooth Gaussian density distribution which turns visibility ...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2016
• Where: CORR
• Authors: Helge Rhodin, Nadia Robertini, Christian Richardt, Hans-Peter Seidel, Christian Theobalt
• Keywords: CORR 2016, Education