Simultaneous Multi-View Camera Pose Estimation and Object Tracking With Squared Planar Markers

Object tracking is a key aspect in many applications, such as augmented reality in medicine (e.g., tracking a surgical instrument) or robotics. Squared planar markers have become popular tools for tracking since their pose can be estimated from their four corners. While using a single marker and a single camera limits the working area considerably, using multiple markers attached to an object requires estimating their relative position, which is not trivial, for high-accuracy tracking. Likewise, using multiple cameras requires estimating their extrinsic parameters, also a tedious process that must be repeated whenever a camera is moved. This paper proposes a novel method to simultaneously solve the above-mentioned problems. From a video sequence showing a rigid set of planar markers recorded from multiple cameras, the proposed method is able to automatically obtain the three-dimensional configuration of the markers, the extrinsic parameters of the cameras, and the relative pose between the markers and the cameras at each frame. Our experiments show that our approach can obtain highly accurate results for estimating these parameters using the low-resolution cameras. Once the parameters are obtained, tracking of the object can be done in real time with a low computational cost. The proposed method is a step forward in the development of cost-effective solutions for object tracking.