Correspondenceless Pose Estimation from a single 2D image using classical mechanics

Estimation of camera pose in world coordinates using a “rigid” object model with “feature points” and their respective images with “known correspondence” to the object model is a problem that has been studied extensively in the computer vision literature. We propose a “correspondenceless” method called Gravitational Pose Estimation (GPE). The word correspondenceless means the information of which image point corresponds to which object point is not needed. GPE requires only a single frame of image plus an object model and is inspired by classical mechanics. GPE creates a gravitational field from the image and lets the object model move and rotate in that force field. Experiments were carried out with both real and synthetic images. Results from real images were compared to measurements directly from our mechanical fixture. Experiments demonstrated GPE is accurate and hence allows efficient pose estimation even when correspondence information is unknown.