The 3D line motion matrix and alignment of line reconstructions

We study the problem of aligning two 3D line reconstructions expressed in Plucker line coordinates. We introduce the 6/spl times/6 3D line motion matrix that acts on Plucker coordinates in projective, affine or Euclidean space. We characterize its algebraic properties and its relation to the usual 4/spl times/4 point motion matrix, and propose various methods for estimating 3D motion from line correspondences, based on image-related and 3D cost functions. We assess the quality of the different estimation methods using simulated data and real images.