Estimating motion/structure from line correspondences: a robust linear algorithm and uniqueness theorems

A closed-form solution to motion and structure from line correspondences in monocular perspective image sequences is presented. The algorithm requires a minimum of 13 lines over three perspective views. Redundancy in the data provides overdetermination to combat noise. The estimates can be used as an initial guess for further optimization. A unique solution to motion and structure is guaranteed if and only if the line configuration is not degenerate and the translation between any two views does not vanish. Necessary and sufficient conditions for degenerate spatial line configurations have been derived. Simulations are performed which show the performance of the algorithm in the presence of noise