Characterization of Image Acquisition and Epipolar Geometry of Multiple Panoramas

Abstract

Recently multiple panoramic images have emerged and received increasingly interest in applications of 3D scene visualization and reconstruction. Examples of such approaches and applications are discussed throughout the paper. Although many panoramic image acquisition models have been proposed in the literature, there is still a lack in studies about what principles are essential in the design/assessment of new/old panoramic image acquisition models in a formal way. Geometric studies such as epipolar geometry are well established for a pair of planar images. Compared to that, the computer vision literature still lacks work on pairs of panoramic images. There is a need to characterize and clarify their common natures and differences so that a more general form/framework or a better computational model can be further discovered or developed. This paper introduces some notions at an abstract level for characterizing the essential components of panoramic image acquisition models. Based on the result of this characterization, we develop a general computational model for describing the family of cylindrical panoramas. A classification within this family, and results of epipolar curve equations for different subclasses of this family are presented.