A 2-point algorithm for 3D reconstruction of horizontal lines from a single omni-directional image

Reconstruction of 3D scenes with abundant straight line features has many applications in computer vision and robot navigation. Most approaches to this problem involve stereo techniques, in which a solution to the correspondence problem between at least two different images is required. In contrast, 3D reconstruction of straight horizontal lines from a single 2D omni-directional image is studied in this paper. The authors show that, for symmetric non-central catadioptric systems, a 3D horizontal line can be estimated using only two points extracted from a single image of the line. One of the two points is the symmetry point of the image curve of horizontal line, and the other is a generic point on the image curve. This paper improves on several prior works, including horizontal line detection in omni-directional image and line reconstruction from four viewing rays, but is simpler than those methods while being more robust. We evaluate how the precision of feature point extraction can affect line reconstruction accuracy, and discuss preliminary experimental results. 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.