findHomography, getPerspectiveTransform, & getAffineTransform

Question

This question is on the OpenCV functions findHomography, getPerspectiveTransform & getAffineTransform

1. What is the

Answer 1

There is an easy solution for the finding the Affine transform for the system of over-determined equations.

1. Note that in general an Affine transform finds a solution to the over-determined system of linear equations Ax=B by using a pseudo-inverse or a similar technique, so

x = (A A^t )^-1 A^t B

Moreover, this is handled in the core openCV functionality by a simple call to solve(A, B, X).

2. Familiarize yourself with the code of Affine transform in opencv/modules/imgproc/src/imgwarp.cpp: it really does just two things:

   a. rearranges inputs to create a system Ax=B;

   b. then calls solve(A, B, X);

NOTE: ignore the function comments in the openCV code - they are confusing and don’t reflect the actual ordering of the elements in the matrices. If you are solving [u, v]’= Affine * [x, y, 1] the rearrangement is:

         x1 y1 1 0  0  1
         0  0  0 x1 y1 1
         x2 y2 1 0  0  1
    A =  0  0  0 x2 y2 1
         x3 y3 1 0  0  1
         0  0  0 x3 y3 1

    X = [Affine11, Affine12, Affine13, Affine21, Affine22, Affine23]’

         u1 v1
    B =  u2 v2
         u3 v3 

All you need to do is to add more points. To make Solve(A, B, X) work on over-determined system add DECOMP_SVD parameter. To see the powerpoint slides on the topic, use this link. If you’d like to learn more about the pseudo-inverse in the context of computer vision, the best source is: ComputerVision, see chapter 15 and appendix C.

If you are still unsure how to add more points see my code below:

// extension for n points;
cv::Mat getAffineTransformOverdetermined( const Point2f src[], const Point2f dst[], int n )
{
    Mat M(2, 3, CV_64F), X(6, 1, CV_64F, M.data); // output
    double* a = (double*)malloc(12*n*sizeof(double));
    double* b = (double*)malloc(2*n*sizeof(double));
    Mat A(2*n, 6, CV_64F, a), B(2*n, 1, CV_64F, b); // input

    for( int i = 0; i < n; i++ )
    {
        int j = i*12;   // 2 equations (in x, y) with 6 members: skip 12 elements
        int k = i*12+6; // second equation: skip extra 6 elements
        a[j] = a[k+3] = src[i].x;
        a[j+1] = a[k+4] = src[i].y;
        a[j+2] = a[k+5] = 1;
        a[j+3] = a[j+4] = a[j+5] = 0;
        a[k] = a[k+1] = a[k+2] = 0;
        b[i*2] = dst[i].x;
        b[i*2+1] = dst[i].y;
    }

    solve( A, B, X, DECOMP_SVD );
    delete a;
    delete b;
    return M;
}

// call original transform
vector src(3);
vector dst(3);
src[0] = Point2f(0.0, 0.0);src[1] = Point2f(1.0, 0.0);src[2] = Point2f(0.0, 1.0);
dst[0] = Point2f(0.0, 0.0);dst[1] = Point2f(1.0, 0.0);dst[2] = Point2f(0.0, 1.0);
Mat M = getAffineTransform(Mat(src), Mat(dst));
cout<