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Definition
Epipolar geometry describes the geometric relationship between two camera systems. It is captured by a 3 ×3 matrix known as essential matrix for calibrated cameras and as fundamental matrix for uncalibrated cameras. It states that for a point observed in one camera, its corresponding point in the other camera must lie on a line. This is known as the epipolar constraint. It reduces the search space of correspondences from two dimensions to one dimension. In motion and structure from motion, this constraint is also known as coplanarity constraint because the optical centers of the cameras and a pair of corresponding image points must lie in a single plane.
Background
The epipolar geometry exists between any two camera systems. Consider the case of two cameras as shown in Fig. 1. Let C and C′be the optical centers of the first and second cameras,...
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Zhang, Z. (2014). Epipolar Geometry. In: Ikeuchi, K. (eds) Computer Vision. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-31439-6_128
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-31439-6_128
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