Improved Interactive method for Reco-Vering 2.5D Models from single Images

In the last years the development of interactive Co mputer-based methods for building virtual and physical 2.5D models from single shaded images face d with an exponential growth. In particular, a wide range of methods based on image processing-based procedures and on Shape From Shading (SFS) can be documented. On the basis of the most f avorable techniques devised in literature, the present work describes an improved interactive meth od capable of retrieving 2.5D models using image shading information. The pro-posed method performs a SFS-based reconstruction where (1) the overall geometry of the expected surface is first recovered and (2) the final 2.5D reconstruction is obtained by minimizing a suitable functional using the rough s urface as an initialization function. The method improves previous interactive works by introducing a novel two-step rough surface recovery and a new definition of a functional to be minimized for solv ing the SFS problem. Tested against a set of case studies the proposed method proves to be effective in providing 2.5D models.