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Abstract

Thin structures, such as wire-frame sculptures, fences, cables, power lines,
and tree branches, are common in the real world. It is extremely challenging to
acquire their 3D digital models using traditional image-based or depth-based
reconstruction methods because thin structures often lack distinct point
features and have severe self-occlusion. We propose the first approach that
simultaneously estimates camera motion and reconstructs the geometry of complex
3D thin structures in high quality from a color video captured by a handheld
camera. Specifically, we present a new curve-based approach to estimate
accurate camera poses by establishing correspondences between featureless thin
objects in the foreground in consecutive video frames, without requiring visual
texture in the background scene to lock on. Enabled by this effective
curve-based camera pose estimation strategy, we develop an iterative
optimization method with tailored measures on geometry, topology as well as
self-occlusion handling for reconstructing 3D thin structures. Extensive
validations on a variety of thin structures show that our method achieves
accurate camera pose estimation and faithful reconstruction of 3D thin
structures with complex shape and topology at a level that has not been
attained by other existing reconstruction methods.