THE NEW TSUKUBA STEREO DATASET IS OUT!

Finally! After so much work we released the "New Tsukuba Stereo Dataset" at ICPR2012

This dataset contains 1800 stereo pairs with ground truth disparity maps, occlusion maps and discontinuity maps that will help to further develop the state of the art of stereo matching algorithms and evaluate its performance. It has been generated using photo-realistic computer graphics techniques and modeled after the original "head and lamp" stereo scene released by University of Tsukuba in 1997. 

The dataset is a 1 minute video sequence and also contains the 3D position and orientation of the camera on each frame, so it also can be used to develop and evaluate camera tracking methods.

It can be downloaded freely from the CVLAB website

Enjoy it!

TSUKUBA REAL WORLD ROBOT CHALLENGE: TRIAL SESSION

Japan is a country well known for being the leader on robotics field, but... how does a country get to be at the top of developing new robots and applications?

The answer is rather simple: challenging talented people all around the country.

This is the aim of Tsukuba Real World Robot Challenge (Tsukuba Challenge in short), it is a competition organized by the New Technology Foundation at Tsukuba city. During this competition teams of University Students from all around Japan and their robots gather together in order to test the skills of the robots in autonomous navigation on a real environment.

The target of the robots is to autonomously complete a circuit around a real environment and real obstacles, like humans walking or riding bikes. Usually the challenge takes place at Tsukuba's Central Park. For us, humans, the task is very simple but for a robot it supposes an Herculean effort.  

Today a trial session was held and here you can see some pictures of the robots that participated:

Please do not be fooled by the simple appearance of these robots, for the real deal is inside of them. As long as the robot has wheels so it can move, the important thing is the control algorithms. They mix GPS receivers, Laser Range Finders and cameras in order to solve the challenge.

Next you can see a short video showing a couple of robots at the start line, as you can see some of the robots perform better than others :)

Next Friday November 19th is the final. Good luck to all the teams!!