title: An information theoretic criterion for evaluating the quality of 3-D reconstructions from video.
abstract: Even though numerous algorithms exist for estimating the three-dimensional (3-D) structure of a scene from its video, the solutions obtained are often of unacceptable quality. To overcome some of the deficiencies, many application systems rely on processing more data than necessary, thus raising the question: how is the accuracy of the solution related to the amount of data processed by the algorithm? Can we automatically recognize situations where the quality of the data is so bad that even a large number of additional observations will not yield the desired solution? Previous efforts to answer this question have used statistical measures like second order moments. They are useful if the estimate of the structure is unbiased and the higher order statistical effects are negligible, which is often not the case. This paper introduces an alternative information-theoretic criterion for evaluating the quality of a 3-D reconstruction. The accuracy of the reconstruction is judged by considering the change in mutual information (MI) (termed as the incremental MI) between a scene and its reconstructions. An example of 3-D reconstruction from a video sequence using optical flow equations and known noise distribution is considered and it is shown how the MI can be computed from first principles. We present simulations on both synthetic and real data to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed criterion.
authors.affiliation: University of California, Riverside, CA 92521, USA. rama@cfar.umd.edu
authors.forename: Amit K
authors.initials: AK
authors.lastname: Roy-Chowdhury
authors.forename: Rama
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Chellappa
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D001185:Artificial Intelligence; D003196:Computer Graphics; D007089:Image Enhancement / Q000379:methods; D007090:Image Interpretation, Computer-Assisted / Q000379:methods*; D021621:Imaging, Three-Dimensional / Q000379:methods*; D016247:Information Storage and Retrieval / Q000379:methods; D007257:Information Theory; D009068:Movement; D010363:Pattern Recognition, Automated / Q000379:methods*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D012815:Signal Processing, Computer-Assisted; D012986:Software Validation; D013382:Subtraction Technique; D014741:Video Recording / Q000379:methods*