In this paper, a statistically optimal solution to the Perspective-n-Point
(PnP) problem is presented. Many solutions to the PnP problem are geometrically
optimal, but do not consider the uncertainties of the observations. In
addition, it would be desirable to have an internal estimation of the accuracy
of the estimated rotation and translation parameters of the camera pose. Thus,
we propose a novel maximum likelihood solution to the PnP problem, that
incorporates image observation uncertainties and remains real-time capable at
the same time. Further, the presented method is general, as is works with 3D
direction vectors instead of 2D image points and is thus able to cope with
arbitrary central camera models. This is achieved by projecting (and thus
reducing) the covariance matrices of the observations to the corresponding
vector tangent space.Comment: Submitted to the ISPRS congress (2016) in Prague. Oral Presentation.
Published in ISPRS Ann. Photogramm. Remote Sens. Spatial Inf. Sci., III-3,
131-13
