Uncalibrated three-view image rectification

Image rectification is a process of transforming a set of images into a new set such that the epipolar lines in the transformed images have the same direction as the image rows or columns to enable an efficient and reliable stereo matching. Previous algorithms for stereo image rectification either work for two view uncalibrated or two/three view calibrated situations. In this paper we propose several novel techniques to rectify uncalibrated trinocular images using the trilinear tensor or projective invariants or fundamental matrices obtained from a triplet of images. Our new methods include: a rotation and skew method, an affine transformation method, and a vanishing points method. Real images have been used for testing purposes, and accurate results have been obtained. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.