Motion and shape recovery based on iterative stabilization for modest deviation from planar motion

We describe an iterative stabilization method that can simultaneously recover camera motion and 3D shape from an image sequence captured under modest deviation from planar motion. This technique iteratively applies a factorization method based on planar motion and can approximate the observed image points to the 2D points projected under planar motion by stabilizing the camera motion. We apply the proposed method to aerial images acquired by a helicopter-borne camera and show better reconstruction of both motion and shape than Christy-Horaud's perspective factorization. Moreover, we confirm that the reprojection errors calculated from the recovered camera motion and 3D shape are very similar to the optimum results yielded by bundle adjustment.