Texture mapping of photographic images to CAD surfaces

Claim 1

A computer system for texture mapping a two-dimensional image of a physical object onto a computer generated three-dimensional surface defined by a plurality of surface points in a CAD space, the computer system comprising: (a) means for creating a two-dimensional texture image plane of the physical object including means for: (i) identifying a plurality of feature points on the physical object; (ii) taking a photograph of the physical object with the photographic device so that the plurality of feature points are included therein; and (iii) converting the photograph into an original texture image plane having a plurality of texture image plane points; (b) means for correcting radial distortion of the original texture image plane due to a lens of the photographic device so as to produce a corrected texture image plane with a one-dimensional radial correction function, the radial one-dimensional function determined by: (a) marking a plurality of data points in a predefined two-dimensional physical wall space and determining a wall space radial distance for each of the plurality of data points; (b) taking a test photograph of the wall space with the photographic device; (c) converting the test photograph to a digital two-dimensional image space; (d) determining an image space radial distance for each of the plurality of data points in the image space; and (e) curve fitting the wall space radial distance and the corresponding image space radial distance pairs for each of the plurality of data points; (c) means for determining a physical location and physical orientation of the photographic device with respect to the physical object by: (i) measuring the coordinates of the feature points in the CAD space; and (ii) solving for the physical location and physical orientation of the photographic device based upon the coordinates of the feature points; and (d) means for transferring the corrected texture image plane onto the three-dimensional surface by: (i) constructing a synthetic camera; (ii) positioning and orienting the synthetic camera in the CAD space with respect to the three-dimensional surface according to the physical location and the physical orientation of the photographic device; (iii) mapping each of the plurality of surface points viewable by the synthetic camera to a corresponding corrected texture image plane point in the corrected texture image plane; and (iv) assigning texture coordinates to each of the plurality of surface points from the corresponding corrected texture image plane point.