Paul Debevec

Paul Debevec earned degrees in Math and Computer Engineering at the University of Michigan in 1992 and a Ph.D. in Computer Science at UC Berkeley in 1996. He began doing research in computer graphics and vision in 1991 by animating an image-based 3D model of a Chevette from photographs.

Debevec's Ph.D. thesis presented Façade, a system for creating virtual cinematography of architectural scenes using new techniques in photogrammetry and image-based rendering. Using Facade he directed a photoreal fly-around of the Berkeley campus for his 1997 film The Campanile Movie whose techniques were later used to create the Academy Award-winning virtual backgrounds for the "bullet time" shots in the 1999 film The Matrix.

Publications Archived Locally

Paul E. Debevec. Modeling and Rendering Architecture from Photographs, Ph.D. Thesis, University of California at Berkeley, 1996. Abstract This thesis presents an approach for modeling and rendering existing architectural scenes from sparse sets of still photographs. The modeling approach, which combines both geometry-based and image-based techniques, has two components. The first component is an interactive photogrammetric modeling method which facilitates the recovery of the basic geometry of the photographed scene. The photogrammetric modeling approach is effective, convenient, and robust because it exploits the constraints that are characteristic of architectural scenes. The second component is a model-based stereo algorithm, which recovers how the real scene deviates from the basic model. By making use of the model, this new technique robustly recovers accurate depth from widely-spaced image pairs. Consequently, this approach can model large architectural environments with far fewer photographs than current image-based modeling approaches. For producing renderings, this thesis presents view-dependent texture mapping, a method of compositing multiple views of a scene that better simulates geometric detail on basic models. This approach can be used to recover models for use in either geometry-based or image-based rendering systems. This work presents results that demonstrate the approach's ability to create realistic renderings of architectural scenes from viewpoints far from the original photographs. This thesis concludes with a presentation of how these modeling and rendering techniques were used to create the interactive art installation Rouen Revisited, presented at the SIGGRAPH '96 art show. Online Thesis (PDF) / Web Site

Paul E. Debevec and Camillo J. Taylor and Jitendra Malik. Modeling and Rendering Architecture from Photographs: A Hybrid Geometry- and Image-Based Approach, Proceedings of SIGGRAPH 96, Computer Graphics Proceedings, Annual Conference Series,  pp. 11-20 (August 1996, New Orleans, Louisiana). Addison Wesley. Edited by Holly Rushmeier. ISBN 0-201-94800-1.

Abstract
We present a new approach for modeling and rendering existing architectural scenes from a sparse set of still photographs. Our modeling approach, which combines both geometry-based and image-based techniques, has two components. The first component is a photogrammetric modeling method which facilitates the recovery of the basic geometry of the photographed scene. Our photogrammetric modeling approach is effective, convenient, and robust because it exploits the constraints that are characteristic of architectural scenes. The second component is a model-based stereo algorithm, which recovers how the real scene deviates from the basic model. By making use of the model, our stereo technique robustly recovers accurate depth from widely-spaced image pairs. Consequently, our approach can model large architectural environments with far fewer photographs than current image-based modeling approaches. For producing renderings, we present view-dependent texture mapping, a method of compositing multiple views of a scene that better simulates geometric detail on basic models. Our approach can be used to recover models for use in either geometry-based or image-based rendering systems. We present results that demonstrate our approach's ability to create realistic renderings of architectural scenes from viewpoints far from the original photographs.

Online Paper (PDF) / Web Site / BibTex Entry

(the Façade paper)

Maintained by John Loomis, last updated 21 May 2005