On the Two-View Geometry of Unsynchronized Cameras

Abstract: We present new methods for simultaneously estimating camera geometry and time shift from video sequences from multiple unsynchronized cameras. Algorithms for simultaneous computation of a fundamental matrix or a homography with unknown time shift between images are developed. Our methods use minimal correspondence sets (eight for fundamental matrix and four and a half for homography) and therefore are suitable for robust estimation using RANSAC. Furthermore, we present an iterative algorithm that extends the applicability on sequences which are significantly unsynchronized, finding the correct time shift up to several seconds. We evaluated the methods on synthetic and wide range of real world datasets and the results show a broad applicability to the problem of camera synchronization.