On calibration, structure from motion and multi-view geometry for generic camera models

We consider calibration and structure from motion tasks for a previously introduced, highly general imaging model, where cameras are modeled as possibly unconstrained sets of projection rays. This allows to describe most existing camera types (at least for those operating in the visible domain), including pinhole cameras, sensors with radial or more general distortions, catadioptric cameras (central or non-central), etc. Generic algorithms for calibration and structure from motion tasks (pose and motion estimation and 3D point triangulation) are outlined. The foundation for a multi-view geometry of non-central cameras is given, leading to the formulation of multi-view matching tensors, analogous to the fundamental matrices, trifocal and quadrifocal tensors of perspective cameras. Besides this, we also introduce a natural hierarchy of camera models: the most general model has unconstrained projection rays whereas the most constrained model dealt with here is the central model, where all rays pass through a single point.