Simultaneous reconstruction of scene structure and camera locations from uncalibrated image sequences

The paper deals with the structure-motion problem for images of point configurations taken by uncalibrated cameras. Using a parametrisation by affine shape and kinetic depth, a complete and explicit characterisation of the imaging geometry is given, including the shape of the object configuration and the positions of the cameras relative to the scene. No epipolar geometry is used. It is shown that not only the projective but also the affine structure of the scene can be recovered when knowing the relative placement of five of the camera centres (four if they are coplanar). Variational algorithms for reconstruction and motion are presented, thus avoiding numerically unstable solving of algebraic equations. Any number of points in any number of images can be treated simultaneously and uniformly, without preselection of reference points. The performances of the algorithms are illustrated on simulations and experiments