CONTINUOUS-TIME MATCHING CONSTRAINTS FOR IMAGE STREAMS

Corresponding image points of a rigid object in a discrete sequence of images fulfil the so-called multilinear constraint. In this paper the continuous time analogue of this constraint, for a continuous stream of images, is introduced and studied. The constraint links the Taylor series expansion of the motion of the image points with the Taylor ser ies expansion of the relative motion and orientation between the objec t and the camera. The analysis is done both for calibrated and uncalib rated cameras. Two simplifications are also presented for the uncalibr ated camera case. One simplification is made using an affine reduction and the so-called kinetic depths. The second simplification is based upon a projective reduction with respect to the image of a planar conf iguration. The analysis shows that the constraint involving second-ord er derivatives are needed to determine camera motion. Experiments with real and simulated data are also presented.