arXiv Computer Vision

HorizonNet for visual terrain navigation

arXiv Computer Vision
Sep 7

ARC-Loc: Leveraging Azimuthal Ray Convergence as a Geometric Cue for Direct Cross-View Localization

ARC‑Loc introduces a new cross‑view localization method that bypasses heavy Bird’s‑Eye‑View transformations and external depth models. By converting ground keypoints into azimuthal rays on a satellite map and exploiting their convergence at the user’s location, the approach uses a minimal Azimuthal Ray Convergence solver and an ARC loss to directly match ground and satellite images. Experiments on VIGOR and KITTI show that ARC‑Loc achieves competitive accuracy while offering faster, memory‑efficient inference and easy integration with existing frameworks.

By Hyeongsik Kim, Mincheol Kim, Heejoon Moon, Je Hyeong Hong
arXiv Computer Vision
Sep 3

Adapting a Foundation Model for Lunar Surface Height Estimation

The paper proposes a method to adapt the Depth Anything V2 (DAV2) zero‑shot relative depth model for estimating lunar surface height. By fine‑tuning DAV2 with publicly available stereophotogrammetry‑derived DEM data, the authors achieve a significant performance boost over the unadapted zero‑shot model. This improved estimator can provide more accurate relative height information useful for hazard detection in future ESA lunar landings.

By Patrick Bauer, Marius Schwinning, Melanie Siegel, Andreas Weinmann, Hichem Snoussi
arXiv Computer Vision
Sep 25

MDE-VIO: Enhancing Visual-Inertial Odometry Using Learned Depth Priors

MDE-VIO integrates learned depth priors into the VINS-Mono optimization backend to improve visual‑inertial odometry in low‑texture environments. The framework enforces affine‑invariant depth consistency and pairwise ordinal constraints while filtering unstable artifacts with variance‑based gating, keeping computation within edge‑device limits. Experiments on TartanGround and M3ED datasets show the method prevents divergence and reduces Absolute Trajectory Error by up to 28.3%.

By Arda Alniak, Sinan Kalkan, Mustafa Mert Ankarali, Afsar Saranli, Abdullah Aydin Alatan