ACCURACY INVESTIGATIONS OF IMAGE MATCHING TECHNIQUES BY MEANS OF A TEXTURED DUMBBELL ARTEFACT

Abstract. In the last few years, photogrammetric methods for 3D surface reconstruction at close range have increased significantly in importance. On the one hand, this is due to the increased performance of the systems and on the other hand to the improved quality (accuracy, completeness) of the created point clouds. In order to verify the accuracy of various area probing methods, the German VDI guideline 2634 part 2 and 3 is applied. However, the high-precision test reference objects existing so far consist of diffuse textureless surfaces, so that passive methods, like image matching, cannot be compared with active methods (e.g. structured light systems). In order to make this possible, a certified textured dumbbell with an accuracy of better than 10 μm is presented in this paper, with the aim to examine the suitability of the textured dumbbell artefact for close-range photogrammetric 3D surface reconstruction. Furthermore, the accuracy level of a structured light system, Structure from Motion (SfM) and Multi-View Stereo Method (MVS) is verified and compared with each other.