Analysis of planar mirror catadioptric stereo systems based on epipolar geometry

Planar mirrors have been used successfully in catadioptric stereo systems to capture stereo images with a single camera. These planar catadioptric stereo (PCS) systems not only provide radiometric advantages over traditional two-camera stereo, but also reduce the complexity and cost of acquiring stereoscopic video. Although much research has been done on the design of the PCS system, little attention has been paid to the analysis of its epipolar geometry, that is, the fundamental matrix. In this paper, we investigated features of the PCS system and proved that certain structure can be approximated by affine epipolar geometry. Experimental results verify that by using the affine model with fewer parameters, estimation of the fundamental matrix for a PCS system can be more robust, precise, and much easier to implement.