Visual Motion of Curves and Surfaces

Computer vision aims to detect and reconstruct features of surfaces from the images produced by cameras, in some way mimicking the way in which humans reconstruct features of the world around them by using their eyes. In this book the authors describe research in computer vision aimed at recovering the 3D shape of surfaces from image sequences of their 'outlines'. They provide all the necessary background in differential geometry (assuming knowledge of elementary algebra and calculus) and in the analysis of visual motion, emphasising intuitive visual understanding of the geometric techniques with computer-generated illustrations. They also give a thorough introduction to the mathematical techniques and the details of the implementations and apply the methods to data from real images using the most current techniques.

• First book to introduce all the necessary differential geometry, slanted towards the applications to computer vision
• It is lavishly illustrated by computer-drawn figures, which aim to make the mathematics more visually understandable
• Specifically designed to cover the geometry of, and reconstruction of, surfaces - which are not dealt with in competing literature