Challenges in 3D reconstruction from images for difficult large-scale objects: A study on the modeling of electrical substations

In recent years, 3D reconstruction from images has played a major role in computer vision with a lot of improvements regarding both quality and performance. One of its main uses is the generation of 3D models of objects that are difficult to modeling. In the electrical sector, 3D reconstruction from images shows itself as a candidate to be used in specific scenarios with the advantage of its low price compared to laser scanning techniques. In fact, there are many industrial applications that can use the power of 3D reconstruction from images but no work has focused more deeply on their requirements yet. This paper analyzes the advantages and drawbacks in using 3D reconstruction from image techniques and tools in the uncontrolled environment of an electrical substation from the scenario characteristics and tools limitations points of view. Some representative available tools (commercial and academic) where evaluated and the relationship between scenario/object characteristics and reconstructed model quality could be pointed out for further improvements of the techniques in future work. This results can be used to create industrial applications with large scale difficult objects.