16.69. theia_sfm

The theia_sfm program is a wrapper around the Theia Structure-from-Motion (SfM) software, to adapt it to work with rig_calibrator (Section 16.58). See that page for an example.

ASP offers another wrapper around Theia, namely camera_solve (Section 16.12), whose aim is to work with ASP’s bundle_adjust program (Section 16.5).

As for rig_calibrator, the images are stored in subdirectories corresponding to sensor name, but it is not assumed that the image files (without directory name) represent a timestamp. So, an image name can be of the form: dir/sensor/string.png.

The view_reconstruction program (Section 16.71) can display the produced reconstruction.

16.69.1. Usage

theia_sfm --rig_config <rig config> [images]  \
  [--theia_flags <flag file>] --out_dir <out dir>

16.69.2. Configuration

The configuration file is the same as for rig_calibrator (Section 16.58.5). This program does not use the transforms between sensors, but only the intrinsics.

See Theia’s supported camera model types. In the rig configuration those are named no_distortion, radtan, fisheye and fov.

16.69.3. Flags file

This program will use the Theia flags file from share/theia_flags.txt in the software distribution, which can be copied to a new name, edited, and passed to theia_sfm via --theia_fags.

As an example, for tricky configurations, setting:

--feature_density=DENSE

in the flags file can create a lot more interest points matches.

16.69.4. Examples

The input images can be specified as:

wildcards:

theia_sfm --rig_config rig_input/rig_config.txt        \
  --images 'rig_input/cam1/*.tif rig_input/cam2/*.tif' \
  --out_dir rig_theia

in a list:

ls rig_input/cam*/*.jpg > image_list.txt
theia_sfm --rig_config rig_input/rig_config.txt        \
  --image_list image_list.txt                          \
  --out_dir rig_theia

on the command line:

theia_sfm --rig_config rig_input/rig_config.txt        \
  rig_input/cam1/image1.png rig_input/cam2/image2.png  \
  --out_dir rig_theia

16.69.5. Visualization

The created camera poses can be visualized as:

view_reconstruction --reconstruction out_dir/reconstruction-0

See this program’s manual in Section 16.71.

The .nvm file can be visualized with stereo_gui (Section 16.67.9.4). This will show the images in the random order produced by Theia. The rig_calibrator program (Section 16.58), which can be used as the next step, will order these lexicographically.

16.69.6. Manipulating SfM solutions

This tool produces an SfM solution with a name like out_dir/cameras.nvm. Several of these can be merged into a larger reconstruction with the sfm_merge (Section 16.61) program. Portions can be extracted with sfm_submap (Section 16.62).

16.69.6.1. Command-line options for theia_sfm

--rig_config <string (default: “”)>

Rig configuration file.

--images <string (default: “”)>

Images, as individual wildcards. Example: 'dir/cam1/*tif dir/cam2/*tif'.

--image_list <string (default: “”)>

Use the images from this list, instead of setting --images. Images must be separated by a newline.

--theia_flags <string (default: “”)>

The flags to pass to Theia. By default, the file share/theia_flags.txt in the software distribution is used.

--out_dir <string (default: “”)>

The output directory (only the ‘cameras.nvm’ file in it is needed afterwards).

-h, --help

Show this help message and exit.