Augmenting Flight Imagery from Aerial Refueling

When collecting real-world imagery, objects in the scene may be occluded by other objects from the perspective of the camera. However, in some circumstances an occluding object is absent from the scene either for practical reasons or the situation renders it infeasible. Utilizing augmented reality techniques, those images can be altered to examine the affect of the object’s occlusion. This project details a novel method for augmenting real images with virtual objects in a virtual environment. Specifically, images from automated aerial refueling (AAR) test flights are augmented with a virtual refueling boom arm, which occludes the receiving aircraft. The occlusion effects of the boom are quantified in order to determine which pixels are not viable for stereo image processing to reduce noise and increase efficiency of estimating aircraft pose from stereo images.