Image registration using a 3-D scene representation

We propose a trifocal motion model, which captures rigid scene/camera motion and 3-D scene structure under perspective projection, to register multiple images without camera calibration. Three images/frames are processed at a time to register the current frame F_i with a common reference frame R by using a common correspondence frame C involving only linear operations. The registration method requires estimation of 27 trifocal tensor parameters between every tripled of frames (R, C, F_i), and a dense correspondence field between the frames R and C. The proposed image registration method can be employed in mosaic synthesis, superresolution, and video standard conversion. The superiority of the proposed trifocal image registration over affine (6 parameters) and perspective (8 parameters) registration is demonstrated by experimental results