Design, Implementation and Evaluation of an External Pose-Tracking System for Underwater Cameras
This provides a practical solution for researchers and engineers working on underwater applications like SLAM, enabling better evaluation in extreme environments such as deep or murky waters.
The paper tackled the problem of obtaining accurate camera pose ground truth for underwater computer vision and robotics by developing an external reference system based on an HTC Vive tracking system, achieving a mean deviation of less than 3 mm and 0.3 degrees compared to an optical marker reference in air.
In order to advance underwater computer vision and robotics from lab environments and clear water scenarios to the deep dark ocean or murky coastal waters, representative benchmarks and realistic datasets with ground truth information are required. In particular, determining the camera pose is essential for many underwater robotic or photogrammetric applications and known ground truth is mandatory to evaluate the performance of e.g., simultaneous localization and mapping approaches in such extreme environments. This paper presents the conception, calibration and implementation of an external reference system for determining the underwater camera pose in real-time. The approach, based on an HTC Vive tracking system in air, calculates the underwater camera pose by fusing the poses of two controllers tracked above the water surface of a tank. It is shown that the mean deviation of this approach to an optical marker based reference in air is less than 3 mm and 0.3 deg. Finally, the usability of the system for underwater applications is demonstrated.