Comparing Optimal 3-D Reconstruction for F inite Motion and Optical F low

We present a theoretically optimal linear algorithm for 3-D reconstruction from point corre-spondences over two views. We also present a similarly constructed optimal linear algorithm for 3-D reconstruction from optical flow. We then compare the performance of the two al-gorithms by simulation and real-image experiments using the same data. This is the first impartial comparison ever done in the sense that the two algorithms are both optimal, ex-tracting the information contained in the data to a maximum possible degree. We observe that the finite motion solution is always superior to the optical flow solution and conclude that the finite motion algorithm should be used for 3-D reconstruction. 1