Estimation of epipolar geometry from homography using global optical flow

We consider optical flow as a means for determining the fundamental matrix for video assuming a small motion between frames. The mapping from one frame to a subsequent frame can be characterized by an eight parameter projective transformation or homography. We use optical flow to find this correspondence. Once found, this mapping can be used to establish the epipolar geometry, represented by the fundamental matrix. This is a basic tool in the analysis of scenes taken with two uncalibrated cameras or subsequent video frames in our case. We use SVD to restrict the rank to 2. The use of optical flow in this particular approach has not previously been well researched. However, we feel that it has a particular advantage when dealing with video because redundant information between frames can be more easily exploited. The results of this method were compared to those of other techniques for calculating the fundamental matrix and are found to be quite comparable.