POSE ESTIMATION AND MAPPING USING CATADIOPTRIC CAMERAS WITH SPHERICAL MIRRORS

Abstract. Catadioptric cameras have the advantage of broadening the field of view and revealing otherwise occluded object parts. However, they differ geometrically from standard central perspective cameras because of light reflection from the mirror surface which alters the collinearity relation and introduces severe non-linear distortions of the imaged scene. Accommodating for these features, we present in this paper a novel modeling for pose estimation and reconstruction while imaging through spherical mirrors. We derive a closed-form equivalent to the collinearity principle via which we estimate the system’s parameters. Our model yields a resection-like solution which can be developed into a linear one. We show that accurate estimates can be derived with only a small set of control points. Analysis shows that control configuration in the orientation scheme is rather flexible and that high levels of accuracy can be reached in both pose estimation and mapping. Clearly, the ability to model objects which fall outside of the immediate camera field-of-view offers an appealing means to supplement 3-D reconstruction and modeling.