Adaptive parameter generation in terrain reconstruction with descent images

In homography based landing area terrain reconstruction with descent images, the reconstruction parameters greatly influence the reconstruction results. Therefore a method for adaptive parameter generation was proposed to find the best parameters automatically. Firstly, an approximate terrain plane was fitted by the spatial points which were determined by the matched feature points in the descent images. The fitted terrain plane worked as the reference plane of the series of parallel slices and determined the normal vector and basic depth. Secondly, at both sides of the fitted terrain plane, the furthest distances between the 3D points and the fitted terrain plane were calculated separately, and thus the terrain height difference could be reckoned. At last, the best account of virtual slice planes was determined with the terrain height difference and the basic depth information of the fitted terrain plane. Through these steps, the homographies which were needed to recover the terrain of landing area could be worked out by these parameters. The comparison of reconstruction results of different parameters shows that the parameters obtained by the proposed method can lead to better reconstruction results without redundant calculation burden.