A fast minimal solver for absolute camera pose with unknown focal length and radial distortion from four planar points

TL;DR

This paper introduces a rapid and stable minimal solver for estimating absolute camera pose from four planar points, accounting for unknown focal length and radial distortion, using a polynomial approach.

Contribution

The paper presents a novel minimal solver that efficiently estimates camera pose with unknown focal length and radial distortion from four planar points.

Findings

Solver is fast and numerically stable.

Solutions derived from a univariate sixth-degree polynomial.

Applicable to perspective cameras with unknown parameters.

Abstract

In this paper we present a fast minimal solver for absolute camera pose estimation from four known points that lie in a plane. We assume a perspective camera model with unknown focal length and unknown radial distortion. The radial distortion is modelled using the division model with one parameter. We show that the solutions to this problem can be found from a univariate six-degree polynomial. This results in a very fast and numerically stable solver.