Stereo with mirrors

In this paper, we propose the use of mirrors and a single camera for computational stereo. When compared to conventional stereo systems that use two cameras, our method has a number of significant advantages such as wide field of view, single viewpoint projection, identical camera parameters and ease of calibration. We propose four stereo systems that use a single camera pointed towards planar, ellipsoidal, hyperboloidal, and paraboloidal mirrors. In each case, we present a derivation of the epipolar constraints. Next, we attempt to understand what can be seen by each system, and formalize the notion of field of view. We conclude with two experiments to obtain 3-D structure. In the first we use a pair of planar mirrors, and in the second a pair of paraboloidal mirrors. The results of our experiments demonstrate the viability of stereo using mirrors.