CSE 252 B : Computer Vision II

We begin by considering the process of image formation when a scene is viewed through a camera. The word camera has its origins in the Latin camera and the Greek kamara, both of which refer to a room or a chamber. In particular we will consider image formation through a pinhole camera. This is the dominant image formation model that is studied in computer vision. A pinhole camera is a box in which one of the walls has been pierced to make a small hole through it. Assuming that the hole is indeed just a point, exactly one ray from each point in the scene passes through the pinhole and hits the wall opposite to it. This results in an inverted image of the scene, as can be seen in figure 1. The inversion of the image is an annoyance and can be corrected for by instead considering a virtual image of the scene on a virtual plane parallel to the imaging plane but on the opposite side of the pinhole.