Abstract

This contribution gives the foundations of the useful panoramic cameras for stereo vision. The approach to a perspective camera-hyperbolic mirror system design is presented. The model of image formation by a central panoramic camera is defined. The analysis of epipolar geometry for panoramic cameras is the main growth of this paper. We show that the panoramic cameras with convex hyperbolic or parabolic mirrors, central panoramic cameras, allow the epipolar geometry as perspective cameras do. It is shown that the epipolar curves in central panoramic images are conics and their equation is derived. A simple adjustment procedure of a perspective camera and a hyperbolic mirror in order to form a proper central panoramic camera is proposed. This research was primarily motivated by looking for an improvement of the motion estimation from a pair of images but the results are also applicable for structure reconstruction from panoramic stereo images. The theory is demonstrated by a...