UNOPose: Unseen Object Pose Estimation with an Unposed RGB-D Reference Image

TL;DR

UNOPose introduces a novel method for estimating the pose of unseen objects from a single RGB-D reference image, overcoming challenges like occlusion and low overlap, and outperforms existing methods on a new benchmark.

Contribution

The paper proposes UNOPose, a new approach that constructs an SE(3)-invariant reference frame and recalibrates correspondences, enabling effective pose estimation from a single unposed reference image.

Findings

Outperforms traditional and learning-based methods in one-reference pose estimation

Demonstrates robustness to occlusion, noise, and geometric variations

Achieves competitive results with CAD-model-based approaches

Abstract

Unseen object pose estimation methods often rely on CAD models or multiple reference views, making the onboarding stage costly. To simplify reference acquisition, we aim to estimate the unseen object's pose through a single unposed RGB-D reference image. While previous works leverage reference images as pose anchors to limit the range of relative pose, our scenario presents significant challenges since the relative transformation could vary across the entire SE(3) space. Moreover, factors like occlusion, sensor noise, and extreme geometry could result in low viewpoint overlap. To address these challenges, we present a novel approach and benchmark, termed UNOPose, for unseen one-reference-based object pose estimation. Building upon a coarse-to-fine paradigm, UNOPose constructs an SE(3)-invariant reference frame to standardize object representation despite pose and size variations. To alleviate small overlap across viewpoints, we recalibrate the weight of each correspondence based on its predicted likelihood of being within the overlapping region. Evaluated on our proposed benchmark based on the BOP Challenge, UNOPose demonstrates superior performance, significantly outperforming traditional and learning-based methods in the one-reference setting and remaining competitive with CAD-model-based methods. The code and dataset are available at https://github.com/shanice-l/UNOPose.