In this paper, we propose an efficient estimation method of an omnidirectional camera movement. The proposed method is based on Structure from Motion utilizing a constraint of parallel lines. In an environment having manmade structures, parallel lines can be extracted from an omnidirectional image easily and constantly, because of its wide field of view. Parallel lines provides a valuable constraint for camera movement estimation. The proposed method can estimate 3-D camera movements by solving one degree of freedom problem three times without regard to the number of viewpoints. Experimental results show the effectiveness of our proposed method.

Map information is important for path planning and self-localization when mobile robots accomplish autonomous tasks. In unknown environments, mobile robots should generate an environment map by themselves. Then, we propose a method for 3D environment modeling by a mobile robot. For environmental measurement, we use a single omni-directional camera. We propose a new estimation method of camera motions for improvement in measurement robustness and accuracy. The method takes advantage of a wide field of view of an omni-directional camera. Experimental results showed the effectiveness of the proposed method.