Robot Vision:

Projective Geometry

Ass.Prof. Friedrich Fraundorfer

SS 2018

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Learning goals

 Understand homogeneous coordinates

 Understand points, line, plane parameters and interpret them

geometrically

 Understand point, line, plane interactions geometrically

 Analytical calculations with lines, points and planes

 Understand the difference between Euclidean and projective space

 Understand the properties of parallel lines and planes in projective

space

 Understand the concept of the line and plane at infinity

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Outline

 1D projective geometry
 2D projective geometry
▫ Homogeneous coordinates
▫ Points, Lines
▫ Duality
 3D projective geometry
▫ Points, Lines, Planes
▫ Duality
▫ Plane at infinity

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Literature

 Multiple View Geometry in Computer Vision. Richard Hartley and

Andrew Zisserman. Cambridge University Press, March 2004.

 Mundy, J.L. and Zisserman, A., Geometric Invariance in Computer

Vision, Appendix: Projective Geometry for Machine Vision, MIT Press,
Cambridge, MA, 1992
 Available online: www.cs.cmu.edu/~ph/869/papers/zisser-mundy.pdf

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Motivation – Image formation

[Source: Charles Gunn]

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Motivation – Parallel lines
[Source: Flickr]

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Motivation – Epipolar constraint

X world point
epipolar plane

x
x’

x‘TEx=0
C C’
T

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Euclidean geometry vs. projective geometry

Definitions:
 Geometry is the teaching of points, lines, planes and their relationships
and properties (angles)
 Geometries are defined based on invariances (what is changing if you
transform a configuration of points, lines etc.)
 Geometric transformations of Euclidean geometry preserve distances
 Geometric transformations of projective geometry do NOT preserve
distances

 Projective geometry was developed to explain the perspective changes

of three-dimensional objects when projected to a plane.

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Difference between Euclidean and projective transformation

Euclidean transformation Projective transformation

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1D Euclidean geometry

p1 p2 p3 p4 x

Euclidean coordinate:
p1=[x]
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1D projective geometry

W=1

p1 p2 p3 p4

homogeneous coordinate:
p1=[x,w] ≈ [x,1]
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2D projective geometry

 Homogeneous coordinates
 Points, Lines
 Duality

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Homogeneous coordinates

 projective plane = Euclidean plane + a new line of points

 The projective space associated to R3 is called the projective plane P2.

ℝ2 O2 p
x
1 v

O3
u image coordinate:
p=[x,y]
homogeneous coordinate:
p=[u,v,w] ≈ [u,v,1]
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Points
 A point in the image is a ray in projective space

-y
(wx,wy,w)
(x,y,1)
(0,0,0)

-z x
image plane

• Each point (x,y) on the plane is represented by a ray (wx,wy,w)

– all points on the ray are equivalent: (x, y, 1)  (wx, wy, w)

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Lines
 A line in the image plane is defined by the equation ax + by + cz =
0 in projective space
 [a,b,c] are the line parameters

 A point [x,y,1] lies on the line if the equation ax + by + cz = 0 is

satisfied
 This can be written in vector notation with a dot product:
 x
0  a b c   y 
 z 
lT p
 A line is also represented as a homogeneous 3-vector l
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Calculations with lines and points

 Defining a line by two points

𝑙 =𝑥 ×𝑦

 Intersection of two lines

𝑥 =𝑙 ×𝑚

 Proof:
𝑙 =𝑥 ×𝑦
𝑥 𝑇 𝑥 × 𝑦 = 𝑦 𝑇 𝑥 × 𝑦 = 0 (scalar triple product)
𝑥𝑇 𝑙 = 𝑦𝑇 𝑙 = 0

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Geometric interpretation of line parameters [a,b,c]
▫ A line l is a homogeneous 3-vector, which is a ray in projective space
▫ It is  to every point (ray) p on the line: l p=0

p2
p1
l

What is the line l spanned by rays p1 and p2 ?

• l is  to p1 and p2  l = p1  p2
• l is the plane normal

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Point and line duality

Duality principle:
 To any theorem of 2-dimensional projective geometry there corresponds
a dual theorem, which may be derived by interchanging the role of
points and lines in the original theorem

x l
x Tl  0 lT x  0
x  l l' l  x x'

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Point and line duality

p1 p2 l1 p
l
l2

What is the line l spanned by rays p1 and p2 ?

• l is  to p1 and p2  l = p1  p2
• l is the plane normal
What is the intersection of two lines l1 and l2 ?
• p is  to l1 and l2  p = l1  l2
Points and lines are dual in projective space
• given any formula, can switch the meanings of points and 19
lines to get another formula
Intersection of parallel lines

 l and m are two parallel lines

𝑙 = (𝑎, 𝑏, 𝑐)𝑇 𝑒. 𝑔. (−1,0,1)𝑇 (a line parallel to y-axis)
𝑚 = (𝑎, 𝑏, 𝑑)𝑇 𝑒. 𝑔. (−1,0,2)𝑇 (another line parallel to y-axis)

 Intersection of l and m
𝑥 =𝑙 ×𝑚
𝑎 𝑎 𝑏𝑑 − 𝑏𝑐 𝑏 x 1 x  2
𝑥 = 𝑏 × 𝑏 = 𝑎𝑐 − 𝑎𝑑 = 𝑑 − 𝑐 −𝑎
𝑐 𝑑 𝑎𝑏 − 𝑎𝑏 0
 A point (x,y,0) is called an ideal point, it does not lie in the image plane.
But where does it lie then

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Ideal points and line at infinity

-v (wx,wy,0)

-w u image plane

 Ideal point (“point at infinity”)

▫ p  (x, y, 0) – parallel to image plane
▫ It has infinite image coordinates
 All ideal points lie at the line at infinity
 l  (0, 0, 1) – normal to the image plane
 Why is it called a line at infinity?

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Projective transformations

 Mapping between planes x’=Hx

x’

y’ 𝜋
y
x’
x

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Projective transformations

Definition: Projective transformation

 x'1   h11 h12 h13  x1 
     
 x'2   h21 h22 h23  x2  or x'  H x
 x'   h h33  x3 
 3   31 h32 8DOF
projectivity=collineation=projective transformation=homography

To transform a point: p’ = Hp
To transform a line: lp=0  l’p’=0
0 = lp = lH-1Hp = lH-1p’  l’ = lH-1
lines are transformed by postmultiplication of H-1

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Overview 2D transformations

 h11 h12 h13  Concurrency, collinearity,

Projective h h22 h23  order of contact (intersection,
8dof  21 tangency, inflection, etc.),
h31 h32 h33  cross ratio

Parallellism, ratio of areas,

 a11 a12 tx  ratio of lengths on parallel
Affine a a22 t y  lines (e.g midpoints), linear
6dof  21 combinations of vectors
 0 0 1  (centroids).

 sr11 sr12 t x  Ratios of lengths, angles.

Similarity  sr sr t 
4dof  21 22 y

 0 0 1 
 r11 r12 t x 
Euclidean r r t  lengths, areas.
3dof  21 22 y 
 0 0 1 

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Effects of projective transformations

 Foreshortening effects can be imaged easily with primitive shapes

 But, how does an circle get transformed?

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Effects of projective transformations

Center of projected circle

Ellipse center

2D circle Circle after projective transformation

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3D projective geometry

 Points, Lines, Planes

 Duality
 Plane at infinity
 Image formation

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3D projective geometry
 The concepts of 2D generalize naturally to 3D
▫ The axioms of geometry can be applied to 3D as well
 3D projective space = 3D Euclidean space + plane at infinity
▫ Not so simple to visualize anymore (4D space)
 Entities are now points, lines and planes
▫ Projective 3D points have four coordinates: P = (x,y,z,w)
 Points, lines, and planes lead to more intersection and joining
options that in the 2D case

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Planes

 Plane equation

Π1 𝑋+Π2 𝑌 + Π3 𝑍+Π4 =0
Π 𝑇 𝑋 =0
▫ Expresses that point X is on plane Π

 Plane parameters
Π = [Π1 , Π2 , Π3 , Π4 ]

▫ Plane parameters are normal vector + distance from origin

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Join and incidence relations with planes

 A plane is defined uniquely by the join of three points, or the join of a

line and point in general position
 Two distinct planes intersect in a unique line
 Three distinct planes intersect in a unique point

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Three points define a plane

 X1,X2,X3 are three distinct points, each has to fullfil the incidence
equation. Equations can be stacked.
𝑋1𝑇
𝑋2𝑇 Π = 0 (3𝑥4)(4𝑥1)
𝑋3𝑇

▫ Plane parameters are the solution vector to this linear equation system (e.g.
SVD)

 Points and planes are dual

Π1𝑇
Π2𝑇 𝑋 = 0
Π3𝑇

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Lines

 Lines are complicated

 Lines and points are not dual in 3D projective space
 Lines are represented by a 4x4 matrix, called Plücker matrix
 Computation of the line matrix from two points A,B

𝐿 = 𝐴𝐵𝑇 − 𝐵𝐴𝑇 4𝑥4 𝑚𝑎𝑡𝑟𝑖𝑥

 Matrix is skew-symmetric
 Example line of the x-axis
▫ x1 = [0 0 0 1]T
x2 = [1 0 0 1]T
L = x1*x2T-x2*x1T
L= 0 0 0 -1
0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0
1 0 0 0

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Lines

 Points and planes are dual, we can get new equations by substituting
points with planes

𝐿 = 𝐴𝐵𝑇 − 𝐵𝐴𝑇 𝐴, 𝐵 𝑎𝑟𝑒 𝑝𝑜𝑖𝑛𝑡𝑠

𝐿∗ = 𝑃𝑄 𝑇 − 𝑄𝑃𝑇 𝑃, 𝑄 𝑎𝑟𝑒 𝑝𝑙𝑎𝑛𝑒𝑠
 The intersection of two planes P,Q is a line
 Lines are self dual, the same line L has a dual representation L*
 The matrix L can be directly computed from the entries of L*

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Point, planes and lines

 A plane can be defined by the join of a point X and a line L

Π = 𝐿∗ 𝑋

 A point can be defined by the intersection of a plane with a line L

X = LΠ

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Plane at infinity

 Parallel lines and parallel planes intersect at Π∞

 Plane parameters of Π∞
Π∞ = (0,0,0,1)𝑇

 It is a plane that contains all the direction vectors 𝐷 = (𝑥1, 𝑥2, 𝑥3,0)𝑇 ,
vectors that originate from the origin of 4D space
 Try to imagine an extension of the 2D case (see illustration below) to the
3D case…

-v (wx,wy,0)

-w u image plane
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Recap - Learning goals

 Understand homogeneous coordinates

 Understand points, line, plane parameters and interpret them

geometrically

 Understand point,line, plane interactions geometrically

 Analytical calculations with lines, points and planes

 Understand the difference between Euclidean and projective space

 Understand the properties of parallel lines and planes in projective

space

 Understand the concept of the line and plane at infinity

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