Automated texture mapping of 3D city models with oblique aerial imagery

Abstract

This work describes an approach to texture mapping a 3D city model obtained from aerial and ground-based laser scans with oblique aerial imagery. First, the images are automatically registered by matching 2D image lines with projections of 3D lines from the city model. Then, for each triangle in the model, the optimal image is selected by taking into account occlusion, image resolution, surface normal orientation, and coherence with neighboring triangles. Finally, the utilized texture patches from all images are combined into one texture atlas for compact representation and efficient rendering. We evaluate our approach on a data set of downtown Berkeley.