A canonical framework for sequences of images

This paper deals with the problem of analysing sequences of images of rigid point objects taken by uncalibrated cameras. It is assumed that the correspondences between the points in the different images are known. The paper introduces a new framework for this problem. Corresponding points in a sequence of n images are related to each other by a fixed n-linear form. This form is an object invariant property, closely linked to the motion of the camera relative to the fixed world. We first describe a reduced setting in which these multilinear forms are easier to understand and analyse. This new formulation of the multilinear forms is then extended to the calibrated case. This formulation makes apparent the connection between camera motion, camera matrices and multilinear forms and the similarities between the calibrated and uncalibrated cases. These new ideas are then used to derive simple linear methods for extracting camera motion from sequences of images.