Mapping Areas using Computer Vision Algorithms and Drones
This work addresses the need for efficient mapping in fields like agriculture or surveillance, but it is incremental as it applies existing computer vision techniques to drone data.
The paper tackled the problem of automated map creation from drone-captured images by implementing the Drone Map Creator system, which uses the SURF method for keypoint detection and image stitching, and successfully demonstrated image stitching along video sequences despite environmental limitations.
The goal of this paper is to implement a system, titled as Drone Map Creator (DMC) using Computer Vision techniques. DMC can process visual information from an HD camera in a drone and automatically create a map by stitching together visual information captured by a drone. The proposed approach employs the Speeded up robust features (SURF) method to detect the key points for each image frame; then the corresponding points between the frames are identified by maximizing the determinant of a Hessian matrix. Finally, two images are stitched together by using the identified points. Our results show that despite some limitations from the external environment, we could have successfully stitched images together along video sequences.