Direct structure estimation for 3D reconstruction

Most conventional structure-from-motion (SFM) techniques require camera pose estimation before computing any scene structure. In this work we show that when combined with single/multiple homography estimation, the general Euclidean rigidity constraint provides a simple formulation for scene structure recovery without explicit camera pose computation. This direct structure estimation (DSE) opens a new way to design a SFM system that reverses the order of structure and motion estimation. We show that this alternative approach works well for recovering scene structure and camera poses from sideway motion given planar or general man-made scenes.