Real-time reconstruction of wave field in laboratory based on binocular stereo vision

The accurate measurement of wave evolution is fundamental for the hydrodynamic studies of marine structures. An image-based method was proposed to measure waves in the laboratory based on binocular stereo vision. The light foam particles were used as trackers to mark wave surface for obtaining the wave images with sufficient textures. The images were rectified based on epipolar constraint, and threshold segmentation was used to avoid the interference of uneven light and bottom reflection. A stereo matching algorithm with GPU acceleration was used to achieve the real-time matching of wave images, obtaining the point cloud and mesh of the wave surface. Through the reconstruction of the image sequences, the wave time series, wave heights and periods were extracted. They were then compared with the measurements by wave probes, showing great agreements. The results indicate that the proposed method can accurately measure the 3D wave field in the laboratory, capturing the instantaneous evolution of wave and providing real-time monitoring. © 2024 China Ship Scientific Research Center. All rights reserved.