Vision-based full-field panorama generation by UAV using GPS data and feature points filtering

To meet the urgent requirements of safety surveillance from civil engineering management authorities, this study proposes a refined and efficient approach to generate full-field high-resolution panorama of construction sites using camera-amounted UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle). GPS (Global Position System) information extraction for pre-registration, feature points filtering for efficient registration and optimal seaming line seeking for fusion are performed in sequence to form the full-field panorama generation framework. Advantages of the proposed method are as follows. First, GPS information can sort images for pre-registration, avoiding inefficient repeated pairwise calculations and matching. Second, the feature points are filtered according to the characteristics of the construction site images to reduce the amount of calculation. The proposed framework is validated on a road construction site and results demonstrate that it can generate an accurate and high-quality full-site panorama for the safety supervision in a much efficient manner.