A 3D Reconstruction Pipeline of Urban Drainage Pipes Based on MultiviewImage Matching Using Low-Cost Panoramic Video Cameras

Urban drainage pipe networks have complex spatial contributions, andthey are now facing problems such as damage, defects, and aging. A rapid and high-precision pipe inspection strategy is thekey to ensuring thesustainable development of urban water supply and drainage system. In this paper, a three-dimensional (3D) reconstruction pipeline of urban drainage pipes based on multiview image matching using low-cost panoramic video cameras is proposed, which provides an innovative technical approach for pipe inspection. Firstly, we extracted frames from the panoramic video of the pipes andcorrected the geometric distortion using a spherical reprojection to obtain multiview pipe images. Second, the robust feature matching method using support lines and affine-invariant ratios isintroduced to conduct pipe image matching. Finally, the photogrammetric processing, using structure from motion (SfM) and dense reconstruction, wasintroduced to achieve the 3D modeling of drainage pipes. Several typical drainage pipes and shafts of the real scenes were taken for the 3D reconstruction experiments. Theresults show that our strategy can realize high-precision 3D reconstruction of different types of pipes, which can provide effective technical support for rapid and efficient inspection of urban pipes with broad application prospects in the daily management of sustainable urban drainage systems (SUDSs).