Relative Bundle Adjustment Based on Trifocal Constraints

Richard Steffen, Jan-Michael Frahm, Wolfgang Förstner

Abstract: In this paper we propose a novel approach to bundle adjustment for large-scale camera configurations. The method does not need to include the 3D points in the optimization as parameters. Additionally, we model the parameters of a camera only relative to a nearby camera to achieve a stable estimation of all cameras. This guarantees to yield a normal equation system with a numerical condition, which practically is independent of the number of images. Secondly, instead of using the classical perspective relation between object point, camera and image point, we use epipolar and trifocal constraints to implicitly establish the relations between the cameras via the object structure. This avoids the explicit reference to 3D points thereby handling points far from the camera in a numerically stable fashion. We demonstrate the resulting stability and high convergence rates using synthetic and real data.