Patent ID: 6996254

Claim:
A computer-implemented incremental motion estimation process for estimating camera pose parameters associated with each of a sequence of images of a scene, comprising using a computer to perform the following process actions: establishing a set of triple matching points that depict the same point in the scene across three successive images of each triplet of images that can be formed from the sequence; establishing a set of dual matching points that depict the same point in the scene across the latter two images of each triplet of images that can be formed from the sequence; defining camera coordinate system associated with the first image in the sequence as coinciding with a 3D world coordinate system for the scene depicted in the sequence of images; estimating the camera pose parameters associated with the second image in the sequence; and for each successive triplet of images formable from the sequence starting with the first three images, estimating the camera pose parameters associated with the third image of each triplet from previously-ascertained camera pose parameters associated with the first two images in the triplet, as well as the dual and triple matching points of the triplet, said estimating comprising, computing the camera pose parameters associated with the third image in the triplet under consideration which will result in a minimum value for a sum of the squared differences between the image coordinates of each identified triple match point and its corresponding predicted image coordinates in each of the three images in the triplet, added to a sum of the squared differences between the image coordinates of each identified dual match point and its corresponding predicted image coordinates in each of the latter two images in the triplet.