The interpretation of structure from motion

Abstract The interpretation of structure from motion is examined from a computional point of view. The question addressed is how the three dimen­sional structure and motion of objects can be inferred from the two dimensional transformations of their projected images when no three dimensional information is conveyed by the individual projections. The following scheme is proposed: (i) divide the image into groups of four elements each; (ii) test each group for a rigid interpretation; (iii) combine the results obtained in (ii). It is shown that this scheme will correctly decompose scenes containing arbitrary rigid objects in motion, recovering their three dimensional structure and motion. The analysis is based primarily on the ʻstructure from motion’ theorem which states that the structure of four non-coplanar points is recoverable from three orthographic projections. The interpretation scheme is extended to cover perspective projections, and its psychological relevance is discussed.