A new method for camera stratified self-calibration under circular motion

We consider the stratified self-calibration (affine and metric reconstruction) problem from images acquired with a camera with unchanging internal parameters undergoing circular motion. The general stratified method (modulus constraints) is known to fail with this motion. In this paper we give a novel constraint on the plane at infinity in projective reconstruction for circular motion, the constant inter-frame motion constraint on the plane at infinity between every two adjacent views and a fixed view of the motion sequences, by making use of the facts that in many commercial systems rotation angles are constant. An initial solution can be obtained by using the first three views of the sequence, and Stratified Iterative Particle Swarm Optimization (SIPSO) is proposed to get an accurate and robust solution when more views are at hand. Instead of using the traditional optimization algorithm as the last step to obtain an accurate solution, in this paper, the whole motion sequence information is exploited before computing the camera calibration matrix, this results in a more accurate and robust solution. Once the plane at infinity is identified, the calibration matrices of the camera and a metric reconstruction can be readily obtained. Experiments on both synthetic and real image sequence are given, showing the accuracy and robustness of the new algorithm.     

A Self-calibration Algorithm Based on a Unified Framework for Constraints on Multiple Views

In this paper, we propose a new self-calibration algorithm for upgrading projective space to Euclidean space. The proposed method aims to combine the most commonly used metric constraints, including zero skew and unit aspect-ratio by formulating each constraint as a cost function within a unified framework. Additional constraints, e.g., constant principal points, can also be formulated in the same framework. The cost function is very flexible and can be composed of different constraints on different views. The upgrade process is then stated as a minimization problem which may be solved by minimizing an upper bound of the cost function. This proposed method is non-iterative. Experimental results on synthetic data and real data are presented to show the performance of the proposed method and accuracy of the reconstructed scene.     

Uncalibrated Motion Capture Exploiting Articulated Structure Constraints

We present an algorithm for 3D reconstruction of dynamic articulated structures, such as humans, from uncalibrated multiple views. The reconstruction exploits constraints associated with a dynamic articulated structure, specifically the conservation over time of length between rotational joints. These constraints admit reconstruction of metric structure from at least two different images in each of two uncalibrated parallel projection cameras. As a by product, the calibration of the cameras can also be computed. The algorithm is based on a stratified approach, starting with affine reconstruction from factorization, followed by rectification to metric structure using the articulated structure constraints. The exploitation of these specific constraints admits reconstruction and self-calibration with fewer feature points and views compared to standard self-calibration. The method is extended to pairs of cameras that are zooming, where calibration of the cameras allows compensation for the changing scale factor in a scaled orthographic camera. Results are presented in the form of stick figures and animated 3D reconstructions using pairs of sequences from broadcast television. The technique shows promise as a means of creating 3D animations of dynamic activities such as sports events.     

A New Linear Method for Camera Self-Calibration with Planar Motion

We consider the self-calibration (affine and metric reconstruction) problem from images acquired with a camera with unchanging internal parameters undergoing planar motion. The general self-calibration methods (modulus constraint, Kruppa equations) are known to fail with this camera motion. In this paper we give two novel linear constraints on the coordinates of the plane at infinity in a projective reconstruction for any camera motion. In the planar case, we show that the two constraints are equivalent and easy to compute, giving us a linear version of the quartic modulus constraint. Using this fact, we present a new linear method to solve the self-calibration problem with planar motion of the camera from three or more images. This work was partly supported by project BFM2003-02914 from the Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología (Spain). Ferran Espuny received the MSc in Mathematics in 2002 from the Universitat de Barcelona, Spain. He is currently a PhD student and associate professor in the Departament d’àlgebra i Geometria at Universitat de Barcelona, Spain. His research, supervised by Dr. José Ignacio Burgos Gil, is focussed on self-calibration and critical motions for both pinhole and generic camera models.     

Self-calibration from one circular motion sequence and two images

This paper describes a new method for self-calibration of camera with constant internal parameters under circular motion, using one sequence and two images captured with different camera orientations. Unlike the previous method, in which three circular motion sequences are needed with known motion, the new method computes the rotation angles and the projective reconstructions of the sequence and the images with circular constraint enforced, which is called a circular projective reconstruction, using a factorization-based method. It is then shown that the images of the circular points of each circular projective reconstruction can be readily obtained. Subsequently, the image of the absolute conic and the calibration matrix of the camera can be determined. Experiments on both synthetic and real image sequence are given, showing the accuracy and robustness of the new algorithm.     

Plane-based camera self-calibration by metric rectification of images

Plane-based self-calibration aims at the computation of camera intrinsic parameters from homographies relating multiple views of the same unknown planar scene. This paper proposes a straightforward geometric statement of plane-based self-calibration, through the concept of metric rectification of images. A set of constraints is derived from a decomposition of metric rectification in terms of intrinsic parameters and planar scene orientation. These constraints are then solved using an optimization framework based on the minimization of a geometrically motivated cost function. The link with previous approaches is demonstrated and our method appears to be theoretically equivalent but conceptually simpler. Moreover, a solution dealing with radial distortion is introduced. Experimentally, the method is compared with plane-based calibration and very satisfactory results are obtained. Markerless self-calibration is demonstrated using an intensity-based estimation of the inter-image homographies.     

An improved algorithm for two-image camera self-calibration and Euclidean structure recovery using absolute quadric

We present an improved algorithm for two-image camera self-calibration and Euclidean structure recovery, where the effective focal lengths of both cameras are assumed to be the only unknown intrinsic parameters. By using the absolute quadric, it is shown that the effective focal lengths can be computed linearly from two perspective images without imposing scene or motion constraints. Moreover, a quadratic equation derived from the absolute quadric is proposed for solving the parameters of the plane at infinity from two images, which upgrades a projective reconstruction to a Euclidean reconstruction.     

Globally Optimal Algorithms for Stratified Autocalibration

We present practical algorithms for stratified autocalibration with theoretical guarantees of global optimality. Given a projective reconstruction, we first upgrade it to affine by estimating the position of the plane at infinity. The plane at infinity is computed by globally minimizing a least squares formulation of the modulus constraints. In the second stage, this affine reconstruction is upgraded to a metric one by globally minimizing the infinite homography relation to compute the dual image of the absolute conic (DIAC). The positive semidefiniteness of the DIAC is explicitly enforced as part of the optimization process, rather than as a post-processing step.     

Camera calibration based on arbitrary parallelograms

Existing algorithms for camera calibration and metric reconstruction are not appropriate for image sets containing geometrically transformed images for which we cannot apply the camera constraints such as square or zero-skewed pixels. In this paper, we propose a framework to use scene constraints in the form of camera constraints. Our approach is based on image warping using images of parallelograms. We show that the warped image using parallelograms constrains the camera both intrinsically and extrinsically. Image warping converts the calibration problems of transformed images into the calibration problem with highly constrained cameras. In addition, it is possible to determine affine projection matrices from the images without explicit projective reconstruction. We introduce camera motion constraints of the warped image and a new parameterization of an infinite homography using the warping matrix. Combining the calibration and the affine reconstruction results in the fully metric reconstruction of scenes with geometrically transformed images. The feasibility of the proposed algorithm is tested with synthetic and real data. Finally, examples of metric reconstructions are shown from the geometrically transformed images obtained from the Internet.     

Self-Calibration and Metric Reconstruction Inspite of Varying and Unknown Intrinsic Camera Parameters

In this paper the theoretical and practical feasibility of self-calibration in the presence of varying intrinsic camera parameters is under investigation. The paper's main contribution is to propose a self-calibration method which efficiently deals with all kinds of constraints on the intrinsic camera parameters. Within this framework a practical method is proposed which can retrieve metric reconstruction from image sequences obtained with uncalibrated zooming/focusing cameras. The feasibility of the approach is illustrated on real and synthetic examples. Besides this a theoretical proof is given which shows that the absence of skew in the image plane is sufficient to allow for self-calibration. A counting argument is developed which—depending on the set of constraints—gives the minimum sequence length for self-calibration and a method to detect critical motion sequences is proposed.     

Stratified self-calibration with the modulus constraint

In computer vision and especially for 3D reconstruction, one of the key issues is the retrieval of the calibration parameters of the camera. These are needed to obtain metric information about the scene from the camera. Often these parameters are obtained through cumbersome calibration procedures. There is a way to avoid explicit calibration of the camera. Self-calibration is based on finding the set of calibration parameters which satisfy some constraints (e.g., constant calibration parameters). Several techniques have been proposed but it often proved difficult to reach a metric calibration at once. Therefore, in the paper, a stratified approach is proposed, which goes from projective through affine to metric. The key concept to achieve this is the modulus constraint. It allows retrieval of the affine calibration for constant intrinsic parameters. It is also suited for use in conjunction with scene knowledge. In addition, if the affine calibration is known, it can also be used to cope with a changing focal length     

Conic reconstruction and correspondence from two views

Conics are widely accepted as one of the most fundamental image features together with points and line segments. The problem of space reconstruction and correspondence of two conics from two views is addressed in this paper. It is shown that there are two independent polynomial conditions on the corresponding pair of conics across two views, given the relative orientation of the two views. These two correspondence conditions are derived algebraically and one of them is shown to be fundamental in establishing the correspondences of conics. A unified closed-form solution is also developed for both projective reconstruction of conics in space from two uncalibrated camera views and metric reconstruction from two calibrated camera views. Experiments are conducted to demonstrate the discriminality of the correspondence conditions and the accuracy and stability of the reconstruction both for simulated and real images     

强约束条件下环绕式相机标定方法

目的 在计算机视觉和摄影测量领域,经常应用多视角图像对场景进行高精度的三维重建。其中,相机内参数和相机间固定相对关系的高精度标定是关键环节,文章提出一种能够在强约束条件下快速进行相机标定的方法。方法 通过相机间6个相互独立的约束,充分利用系统的几何条件,确定固有关系,再以共线方程为基础推导强约束条件下的平差模型,并应用于自检校光束法平差,开展相邻立体相机的匹配,实现多相机系统的快速标定。结果 最后通过实验,验证了加了强约束条件后,加大了平差的多余观测数,提高了标定精度和鲁棒性。结论 建立了相机标定系统,提出了在强约束条件下快速进行相机标定的方法,展开了人体三维重建研究,并且该方法可推广到多个相机组成的多相机立体量测系统的标定中。     

Visual Modeling with a Hand-Held Camera

In this paper a complete system to build visual models from camera images is presented. The system can deal with uncalibrated image sequences acquired with a hand-held camera. Based on tracked or matched features the relations between multiple views are computed. From this both the structure of the scene and the motion of the camera are retrieved. The ambiguity on the reconstruction is restricted from projective to metric through self-calibration. A flexible multi-view stereo matching scheme is used to obtain a dense estimation of the surface geometry. From the computed data different types of visual models are constructed. Besides the traditional geometry- and image-based approaches, a combined approach with view-dependent geometry and texture is presented. As an application fusion of real and virtual scenes is also shown.     

基于仿射点对应的分层重构

提出了一种基于仿射点对应的分层重构方法,所谓仿射点对应是指相差一个仿射变换的两个空间点集的图像对应．该方法主要分为以下三个步骤：首先,从点对应计算准仿射重构;然后,由仿射点对应的准仿射重构建立一个三维射影变换,并利用这个射影变换的特征向量来确定无穷远平面,从而得到仿射重构;最后,从仿射重构所获得的无穷远平面单应矩阵标定摄像机内参数,进而得到度量重构．在上述三个步骤中,第二个步骤是最关键的,即如何确定对应于无穷远平面的特征向量,这也是该文的新思想和主要贡献所在．仿真和真实图像实验均表明,该文的方法是有效的,并且有很好的鲁棒性．     

Euclidean upgrading from segment lengths: DLT-like algorithm and its variants

In this paper, how to calibrate a fixed multi-camera system and simultaneously achieve a Euclidean reconstruction from a set of segments is addressed. It is well known that only a projective reconstruction could be achieved without any prior information. Here, the known segment lengths are exploited to upgrade the projective reconstruction to a Euclidean reconstruction and simultaneously calibrate the intrinsic and extrinsic camera parameters. At first, a DLT(Direct Linear Transformation)-like algorithm for the Euclidean upgrading from segment lengths is derived in a very simple way. Although the intermediate results in the DLT-like algorithm are essentially equivalent to the quadric of segments (QoS), the DLT-like algorithm is of higher accuracy than the existing linear algorithms derived from the QoS because of a more accurate way to extract the plane at infinity from the intermediate results. Then, to further improve the accuracy of Euclidean upgrading, two weighted DLT-like algorithms are presented by weighting the linear constraint equations in the original DLT-like algorithm. Finally, using the results of these linear algorithms as the initial values, a new weighted nonlinear algorithm for Euclidean upgrading is explored to recover the Euclidean structure more accurately. Extensive experimental results on both the synthetic data and the real image data demonstrate the effectiveness of our proposed algorithms in Euclidean upgrading and multi-camera calibration.     

Detecting motion regions in presence of strong parallax from a moving camera by multi-view geometric constraints

We present a method for detecting motion regions in video sequences observed by a moving camera in the presence of a strong parallax due to static 3D structures. The proposed method classifies each image pixel into planar background, parallax, or motion regions by sequentially applying 2D planar homographies, the epipolar constraint, and a novel geometric constraint called the "structure consistency constraint." The structure consistency constraint, being the main contribution of this paper, is derived from the relative camera poses in three consecutive frames and is implemented within the "Plane + Parallax" framework. Unlike previous planar-parallax constraints proposed in the literature, the structure consistency constraint does not require the reference plane to be constant across multiple views. It directly measures the inconsistency between the projective structures from the same point under camera motion and reference plane change. The structure consistency constraint is capable of detecting moving objects followed by a moving camera in the same direction, a so-called degenerate configuration where the epipolar constraint fails. We demonstrate the effectiveness and robustness of our method with experimental results of real-world video sequences.     

Multiview constraints on homographies

The image motion of a planar surface between two camera views is captured by a homography (a 2D projective transformation). The homography depends on the intrinsic and extrinsic camera parameters, as well as on the 3D plane parameters. While camera parameters vary across different views, the plane geometry remains the same. Based on this fact, we derive linear subspace constraints on the relative homographies of multiple (⩾ 2) planes across multiple views. The paper has three main contributions: 1) We show that the collection of all relative homographies (homologies) of a pair of planes across multiple views, spans a 4-dimensional linear subspace. 2) We show how this constraint can be extended to the case of multiple planes across multiple views. 3) We show that, for some restricted cases of camera motion, linear subspace constraints apply also to the set of homographies of a single plane across multiple views. All the results derived are true for uncalibrated cameras. The possible utility of these multiview constraints for improving homography estimation and for detecting nonrigid motions are also discussed     

Laser range scanner based on self-calibration techniques using coplanarities and metric constraints

In this paper, we propose a novel method to achieve both dense 3D reconstruction of the scene and estimation of the camera intrinsic parameters by using coplanarities and other constraints (e.g., orthogonalities or parallelisms) derived from relations between planes in the scene and reflected curves of line lasers captured by a single camera. In our study, we categorize coplanarities in the scene into two types: implicit coplanarities, which can be observed as reflected curves of line lasers, and explicit coplanarities, which are, for example, observed as walls of a building. By using both types of coplanarities, we can construct simultaneous equations and can solve them up to four degrees of freedom. To upgrade the solution to the Euclidean space and estimate the camera intrinsic parameters, we can use metric constraints such as orthogonalities of the planes. Such metric constraints are given by, for example, observing the corners of rectangular boxes in the scene, or using special laser projecting device composed of two line lasers whose laser planes are configured to be perpendicular.