Quaternion Based Camera Pose Estimation From Matched Feature Points

We present a novel solution to the camera pose estimation problem, where rotation and translation of a camera between two views are estimated from matched feature points in the images. The camera pose estimation problem is traditionally solved via algorithms that are based on the essential matrix or the Euclidean homography. With six or more feature points in general positions in the space, essential matrix based algorithms can recover a unique solution. However, such algorithms fail when points are on critical surfaces (e.g., coplanar points) and homography should be used instead. By formulating the problem in quaternions and decoupling the rotation and translation estimation, our proposed algorithm works for all point configurations. Using both simulated and real world images, we compare the estimation accuracy of our algorithm with some of the most commonly used algorithms. Our method is shown to be more robust to noise and outliers. For the benefit of community, we have made the implementation of our algorithm available online and free1.