Calibration-Free Augmented Reality

Camera calibration and the acquisition of Euclidean 3D measurements have so far been considered necessary requirements for overlaying three-dimensional graphical objects with live video. We describe a new approach to video-based augmented reality that avoids both requirements: it does not use any metric information about the calibration parameters of the camera or the 3D locations and dimensions of the environment's objects. The only requirement is the ability to track across frames at least four fiducial points that are specified by the user during system initialization and whose world coordinates are unknown. Our approach is based on the following observation: given a set of four or more noncoplanar 3D points, the projection of all points in the set can be computed as a linear combination of the projections of just four of the points. We exploit this observation by: tracking regions and color fiducial points at frame rate; and representing virtual objects in a non-Euclidean, affine frame of reference that allows their projection to be computed as a linear combination of the projection of the fiducial points. Experimental results on two augmented reality systems, one monitor-based and one head-mounted, demonstrate that the approach is readily implementable, imposes minimal computational and hardware requirements, and generates real-time and accurate video overlays even when the camera parameters vary dynamically.