REVIEW AND ANALYSIS OF SOLUTIONS OF THE 3-POINT PERSPECTIVE POSE ESTIMATION PROBLEM

In this paper, the major direct solutions to the three point perspecti ve pose estimation problems are reviewed from a unified perspective be ginning with the first solution which was published in 1841 by a Germa n mathematician, continuing through the solutions published in the Ger man and then American photogrammetry literature, and most recently in the current computer vision literature. The numerical stability of the se three point perspective solutions are also discussed. We show that even in case where the solution is not near the geometric unstable reg ion, considerable care must be exercised in the calculation. Depending on the order of the substitutions utilized, the relative error can ch ange over a thousand to one. This difference is due entirely to the wa y the calculations are performed and not due to any geometric structur al instability of any problem instance. We present an analysis method which produces a numerically stable calculation.