BUILDUP: interactive creation of urban scenes from large photo collections

Abstract

We propose a system for creating images of urban scenes composed of the large structures typical in such environments. Our system provides the user with a precomputed library of image-based 3D objects, such as roads, sidewalks and buildings, obtained from a large collection of photographs. When the user picks the 3D location of a new object to insert, the system retrieves objects that have all the required properties (location, orientation and lighting). Then, the user interface guides the user to add more objects enabling non-experts to make a new composition in a fast and intuitive way. Unlike prior work, the entire image composition process is done in the 3D space of the scene, therefore inconsistent scale or perspective distortion does not arise, and occlusions are properly handled.