Efficient Distortion Mitigation in Equirectangular Images for Two-View Pose Estimation

Abstract

This study proposes a method to efficiently reduce distortion effects in equirectangular images. Spherical cameras provide a wide field of view, advantageous for localization tasks. When applying standard image processing techniques to spherical images, they are commonly converted into equirectangular images by equirectangular projection, which introduces geometric distortions that can impair localization accuracy. Existing approaches for distortion mitigation frequently encounter a trade-off between accuracy and processing speed. We propose a method that mitigates distortion effects while reducing computational costs to overcome these limitations. Our method incorporates an innovative strategy for image rotation and region selection, improving computational efficiency in feature detection and description. Experimental results for two-view pose estimation, an essential component of localization, showed that our method achieves the fastest processing speed while maintaining accuracy comparable to that of distortion mitigation techniques.