extracting a quadrilateral image to a rectangle

Question

BOUNTY UPDATE

Answer 1

Look up "quad to quad" transform, e.g. threeblindmiceandamonkey.
A 3x3 transform on 2d homogeneous coordinates can transform any 4 points (a quad) to any other quad; conversely, any fromquad and toquad, such as the corners of your truck and a target rectangle, give a 3 x 3 transform.

Qt has quadToQuad and can transform pixmaps with it, but I guess you don't have Qt ?
Added 10Jun: from labs.trolltech.com/page/Graphics/Examples there's a nice demo which quad-to-quads a pixmap as you move the corners:

Added 11Jun: @Will, here's translate.h in Python (which you know a bit ? """ ...""" are multiline comments.)
perstrans() is the key; hope that makes sense, if not ask.

Bytheway, you could map the pixels one by one, mapQuadToQuad( target rect, orig quad ), but without pixel interpolation it'll look terrible; OpenCV does it all.

#!/usr/bin/env python
""" square <-> quad maps
    from http://threeblindmiceandamonkey.com/?p=16 matrix.h
"""

from __future__ import division
import numpy as np

__date__ = "2010-06-11 jun denis"

def det2(a, b, c, d):
    return a*d - b*c

def mapSquareToQuad( quad ):  # [4][2]
    SQ = np.zeros((3,3))
    px = quad[0,0] - quad[1,0] + quad[2,0] - quad[3,0]
    py = quad[0,1] - quad[1,1] + quad[2,1] - quad[3,1]
    if abs(px) < 1e-10 and abs(py) < 1e-10:
        SQ[0,0] = quad[1,0] - quad[0,0]
        SQ[1,0] = quad[2,0] - quad[1,0]
        SQ[2,0] = quad[0,0]
        SQ[0,1] = quad[1,1] - quad[0,1]
        SQ[1,1] = quad[2,1] - quad[1,1]
        SQ[2,1] = quad[0,1]
        SQ[0,2] = 0.
        SQ[1,2] = 0.
        SQ[2,2] = 1.
        return SQ
    else:
        dx1 = quad[1,0] - quad[2,0]
        dx2 = quad[3,0] - quad[2,0]
        dy1 = quad[1,1] - quad[2,1]
        dy2 = quad[3,1] - quad[2,1]
        det = det2(dx1,dx2, dy1,dy2)
        if det == 0.:
            return None
        SQ[0,2] = det2(px,dx2, py,dy2) / det
        SQ[1,2] = det2(dx1,px, dy1,py) / det
        SQ[2,2] = 1.
        SQ[0,0] = quad[1,0] - quad[0,0] + SQ[0,2]*quad[1,0]
        SQ[1,0] = quad[3,0] - quad[0,0] + SQ[1,2]*quad[3,0]
        SQ[2,0] = quad[0,0]
        SQ[0,1] = quad[1,1] - quad[0,1] + SQ[0,2]*quad[1,1]
        SQ[1,1] = quad[3,1] - quad[0,1] + SQ[1,2]*quad[3,1]
        SQ[2,1] = quad[0,1]
        return SQ

#...............................................................................
def mapQuadToSquare( quad ):
    return np.linalg.inv( mapSquareToQuad( quad ))

def mapQuadToQuad( a, b ):
    return np.dot( mapQuadToSquare(a), mapSquareToQuad(b) )

def perstrans( X, t ):
    """ perspective transform X Nx2, t 3x3:
        [x0 y0 1] t = [a0 b0 w0] -> [a0/w0 b0/w0]
        [x1 y1 1] t = [a1 b1 w1] -> [a1/w1 b1/w1]
        ...
    """
    x1 = np.vstack(( X.T, np.ones(len(X)) ))
    y = np.dot( t.T, x1 )
    return (y[:-1] / y[-1]) .T

#...............................................................................
if __name__ == "__main__":
    np.set_printoptions( 2, threshold=100, suppress=True )  # .2f

    sq = np.array([[0,0], [1,0], [1,1], [0,1]])
    quad = np.array([[171, 72], [331, 93], [333, 188], [177, 210]])
    print "quad:", quad
    print "square to quad:", perstrans( sq, mapSquareToQuad(quad) )
    print "quad to square:", perstrans( quad, mapQuadToSquare(quad) )

    dw, dh = 300, 250
    rect = np.array([[0, 0], [dw, 0], [dw, dh], [0, dh]])
    quadquad = mapQuadToQuad( quad, rect )
    print "quad to quad transform:", quadquad
    print "quad to rect:", perstrans( quad, quadquad )
"""
quad: [[171  72]
 [331  93]
 [333 188]
 [177 210]]
square to quad: [[ 171.   72.]
 [ 331.   93.]
 [ 333.  188.]
 [ 177.  210.]]
quad to square: [[-0.  0.]
 [ 1.  0.]
 [ 1.  1.]
 [ 0.  1.]]
quad to quad transform: [[   1.29   -0.23   -0.  ]
 [  -0.06    1.79   -0.  ]
 [-217.24  -88.54    1.34]]
quad to rect: [[   0.    0.]
 [ 300.    0.]
 [ 300.  250.]
 [   0.  250.]]
"""