The Number of Independent Kruppa Constraints from N Images

Abstract

It is well known that without any priori knowledge on the scene, camera motion and camera intrinsic parameters, the only constraint between a pair of images is the so-called epipolar constraint, or equivalently its fundamental matrix. For each fundamental matrix, at most two independent constraints on the cameras’ intrinsic parameters are available via the Kruppa equations. Given N images, N(N−1)/2 fundamental matrices appear, and N(N−1) Kruppa constraints are available. However, to our knowledge, a formal proof of how many independent Kruppa constraints exist out of these N(N−1) ones is unavailable in the literature. In this paper, we prove that given N images captured by a pinhole camera with varying parameters and under general motion, the number of independent Kruppa constraints is (5N−9) (N > 2), and it is less than that of independent constraints from the absolute quadric by only one. This one-constraint-less property of the Kruppa equations is their inherent deficiency and is independent of camera motion. This deficiency is due to their failure of automatic enforcement of the rank-three-ness on the absolute quadric.