Three-Dimensional Traffic Scenes Simulation From Road Image Sequences

In this paper, we present a novel framework to allow users to tour simulated traffic scenes from the first-person view. Constructing 3-D scenes from road image sequences is in general difficult, due to the intrinsic complexity of dynamic road scenes, which are composed of a drastically moving background, not to mention numerous other surrounding vehicles. With the definitions of the traffic scene models, we first introduce the construction process of the simple traffic scenes. After the detection of road boundaries by a semantic fast two-cycle (FTC) level set method, we generate the control points on road sides to construct the “floor-wall” background scene that is subsequently propagated to each frame. Furthermore, we approach the cluttered traffic scenes through a three-component processing pipeline as follows: 1) traffic elements segmentation; 2) background images inpainting; and 3) traffic scenes construction. The traffic elements in the cluttered images are segmented by the semantic FTC level set method first. A Gaussian mixture model is then employed to inpaint the occluded background utilizing the optical flows. The cluttered traffic scenes can be constructed after the segmentation and inpainting components. The foreground polygons such as vehicles and traffic signs are then modeled. Users can change their viewpoints according to their own interpretations. We present the evaluations of each technical component, followed by our findings from comprehensive user studies, which well demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed framework in delivering good touring experience to users.