Motion and structure from prospectively projected optical flow by solving linear simultaneous equation

Image changes produced by a moving camera (optical flow) are an important information source of the observer's motion and structure of environment. Determination of the 3D motion and structure from optical flow is one of the most important problems in computer vision and intensively studied by researchers. However, previous works in this field have been unsatisfactory because they require the solution of nonlinear simultaneous equations using iterative search. In the present paper, we propose a method for the recovery of motion and structure from prospectively projected optical flow of feature points which move rigidly. In order to simplify the computation and obtain clear perspectives, we adopt a spherical image screen and arrange equations in linear form. As a result, our method does not require the solution of nonlinear simultaneous equations, but only requires solving linear ones. Simulation results of our method are also presented.