Is the recoverPose() function in OpenCV is left-handed?

Question

I run simple test for OpenCV camera pose estimation. Having a photo and the same photo scaled up (zoomed in) I use them to detect features, calculate essential matrix and re

Answer 1

According to the OpenCV document, the algorithm in the function recoverPose is based on the paper "Nistér, D. An efficient solution to the five-point relative pose problem, CVPR 2003." From equations in Section 2 in this paper, we know it uses the basic triangle relationship (see figure here):

x2 = R*x1 + t

Therefore, translation t is the vector from cam2 to cam1 in cam2 frame. This explains why you get the answer t close to [0; 0; -1].