Science

NASA Vision Workbench – computer vision framework

NASA Vision Workbench is a C++ image processing and machine vision library.

The Vision Workbench has been used within NASA for a wide range of image processing tasks, including alignment and stitching of panoramic images, high-dynamic-range imaging, texture analysis and recognition, lunar and planetary map generation, and the production of 3D models from stereo image pairs.

NASA Vision Workbench was designed to support a variety of space exploration tasks, including automated science and engineering analysis, robot perception, and 2D/3D environment reconstruction, though it can also serve as a general-purpose image processing and machine vision framework in other contexts as well.

This package is composed of several modules each of which provides a separate C++ library. The core library provides the basic image and pixel data types as well as a range of fundamental image processing operations.

It is specifically designed for image processing in the context of machine vision.

Features include:

  • Solid efficient foundation.
  • ‘Lazy’ computation model.
  • Scalable support for block-level operations on images.
  • Easy to understand end-user syntax.
  • Modules:
    • Camera.
      • pinhole and linescan camera models.
      • EXIF metadata parsing.
      • bayer filter decoding.
    • Cartography:
      • transformation between map projections.
      • geo-referenced file IO (GeoTIFF, etc).
    • Core:
      • exception handling.
      • debugging support.
      • type system support.
      • cache support.
    • FileIO:
      • reading and writing JPEG, PNG, TIFF, PDS, OpenEXR files (requires 3rd party libraries).
      • image paging support for large files.
    • HDR:
      • high dynamic range image creation from bracketed low dynamic range exposures.
      • camera response curve estimation.
      • global and local tone mapping operators.
    • Image:
      • convolution — convolve images with linear filters.
      • algebra — image addition, subtraction, and multiplication by a scalar.
      • math — perform per pixel math operations on images (e.g., abs, hypot, sqrt, pow, exp, log, sin, cos, asin, acos, atan2, etc).
      • transformations — translation, rotation, scale, resampling, arbitrary warps.
      • image statistics.
    • Math:
      • vector, matrix, quaternion and linear algebra (interface to LAPACK).
      • optimization — levenberg-Marquardt, conjugate gradient.
      • homographies — estimation of relations between geometric entities.
      • bounding boxes — Determination of geometric extent.
    • Mosaic:
      • assembling large image composites from many source images.
      • multi-band blending.
      • generating on-disk quad-tree representations of extremely large images.
    • Stereo:
      • correlating stereo pairs of images.
      • stereo camera models for 3D reconstruction.
      • outlier rejection.

Website: software.nasa.gov/software/ARC-15761-1A
Support: Documentation, GitHub Code Repository
Developer: NASA Ames Research Center
License: Apache License, Version 2.0

Nasa Vision Workbench

Nasa Vision Workbench is written in C++. Learn C++ with our recommended free books and free tutorials.

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