Tutorial 1 intro: Omnidirectional Vision for Underwater Robots
The use of omnidirectional cameras on land and in air has become very popular for both research and entertainment. For the scientific community, omnidirectional cameras have high potential in tasks such as mapping, augmented reality, visual surveillance, motion estimation and SLAM. However, their use in underwater environments is still very limited due to the unfavourable properties of the medium. Nevertheless, omnidirectional cameras are expected to have a high impact in fields as diverse as marine life sciences, oil and gas industries, underwater archaeology and preservation/outreach. This tutorial will present key concepts of multi-camera omnidirectional vision, and review the main achievements of the University of Girona in designing, deploying and processing this type of imagery. Application cases will be presented on multi-robot formation tracking, virtual touring, and 3D reconstruction for archaeology.