How to combine two remap() operations into one? - c++

Question

I have a tight loop, where I get a camera image, undistort it and also transform it according to some transformation (e.g. a perspective transform). I already figured out to use cv::remap(...) for each operation, which is already much more efficient than using plain matrix operations.
In my understanding it should be possible to combine the lookup maps into one and call remap just once in every loop iteration. Is there a canonical way to do this? I would prefer not to implement all the interpolation stuff myself.
Note: The procedure should work with differently sized maps. In my particular case the undistortion preserves the image dimensions, while the other transformation scales the image to a different size.
Code for illustration:
// input arguments
const cv::Mat_<math::flt> intrinsic = getIntrinsic();
const cv::Mat_<math::flt> distortion = getDistortion();
const cv::Mat mNewCameraMatrix = cv::getOptimalNewCameraMatrix(intrinsic, distortion, myImageSize, 0);
// output arguments
cv::Mat undistortMapX;
cv::Mat undistortMapY;
// computes undistortion maps
cv::initUndistortRectifyMap(intrinsic, distortion, cv::Mat(),
newCameraMatrix, myImageSize, CV_16SC2,
undistortMapX, undistortMapY);
// computes undistortion maps
// ...computation of mapX and mapY omitted
cv::convertMaps(mapX, mapY, skewMapX, skewMapY, CV_16SC2);
for(;;) {
cv::Mat originalImage = getNewImage();
cv::Mat undistortedImage;
cv::remap(originalImage, undistortedImage, undistortMapX, undistortMapY, cv::INTER_LINEAR);
cv::Mat skewedImage;
cv::remap(undistortedImage, skewedImage, skewMapX, skewMapY, cv::INTER_LINEAR);
outputImage(skewedImage);
}

Answer 1

You can apply remap on undistortMapX and undistortMapY.
cv::remap(undistortMapX, undistrtSkewX, skewMapX, skewMapY, cv::INTER_LINEAR);
cv::remap(undistortMapY, undistrtSkewY, skewMapX, skewMapY, cv::INTER_LINEAR);
Than you can use:
cv::remap(originalImage , skewedImage, undistrtSkewX, undistrtSkewY, cv::INTER_LINEAR);
It works because skewMaps and undistortMaps are arrays of coordinates in image, so it should be similar to taking location of location...
Edit (answer to comments):
I think I need to make some clarification. remap() function calculates pixels in new image from pixels of old image. In case of linear interpolation each pixel in new image is a weighted average of 4 pixels from the old image. The weights differ from pixel to pixel according to values from provided maps. If the value is more or less integer, then most of the weight is taken from single pixel. As a result new image will be as sharp is original image. On the other hand, if the value is far from being integer (i.e. integer + 0.5) then the weights are similar. This will create smoothing effect. To get a feeling of what I am talking about, look at the undistorted image. You will see that some parts of the image are sharper/smoother than other parts.
Now back to the explanation about what happened when you combined two remap operations into one. The coordinates in combined maps are correct, i.e. pixel in skewedImage is calculated from correct 4 pixels of originalImage with correct weights. But it is not identical to result of two remap operations. Each pixel in undistortedImage is a weighted average of 4 pixels from originalImage. This means that each pixel of skewedImage would be a weighted average of 9-16 pixels from orginalImage. Conclusion: using single remap() can NOT possibly give result that is identical to two usages of remap().
Discussion about which of the two possible images (single remap() vs double remap()) is better is quite complicated. Normally it is good to make as little interpolations as possible, because each interpolation introduces different artifacts. Especially if the artifacts are not uniform in the image (some regions became more smooth than others). In some cases those artifacts may have good visual effect on the image - like reducing some of the jitter. But if this is what you want, you can achieve this in cheaper and more consistent ways. For example by smoothing original image prior to remaping.

Answer 2

In the case of two general mappings, there is no choice but to use the approach suggested by #MichaelBurdinov.
However, in the special case of two mappings with known inverse mappings, an alternative approach is to compute the maps manually. This manual approach is more accurate than the double remap one, since it does not involve interpolation of coordinate maps.
In practice, most of the interesting applications match this special case. It does too in your case because your first map corresponds to image undistortion (whose inverse operation is image distortion, which is associated to a well known analytical model) and your second map corresponds to a perspective transform (whose inverse can be expressed analytically).
Computing the maps manually is actually quite easy. As stated in the documentation (link) these maps contain, for each pixel in the destination image, the (x,y) coordinates where to find the appropriate intensity in the source image. The following code snippet shows how to compute the maps manually in your case:
int dst_width=...,dst_height=...; // Initialize the size of the output image
cv::Mat Hinv=H.inv(), Kinv=K.inv(); // Precompute the inverse perspective matrix and the inverse camera matrix
cv::Mat map_undist_warped_x32f(dst_height,dst_width,CV_32F); // Allocate the x map to the correct size (n.b. the data type used is float)
cv::Mat map_undist_warped_y32f(dst_height,dst_width,CV_32F); // Allocate the y map to the correct size (n.b. the data type used is float)
// Loop on the rows of the output image
for(int y=0; y<dst_height; ++y) {
std::vector<cv::Point3f> pts_undist_norm(dst_width);
// For each pixel on the current row, first use the inverse perspective mapping, then multiply by the
// inverse camera matrix (i.e. map from pixels to normalized coordinates to prepare use of projectPoints function)
for(int x=0; x<dst_width; ++x) {
cv::Mat_<float> pt(3,1); pt << x,y,1;
pt = Kinv*Hinv*pt;
pts_undist_norm[x].x = pt(0)/pt(2);
pts_undist_norm[x].y = pt(1)/pt(2);
pts_undist_norm[x].z = 1;
}
// For each pixel on the current row, compose with the inverse undistortion mapping (i.e. the distortion
// mapping) using projectPoints function
std::vector<cv::Point2f> pts_dist;
cv::projectPoints(pts_undist_norm,cv::Mat::zeros(3,1,CV_32F),cv::Mat::zeros(3,1,CV_32F),intrinsic,distortion,pts_dist);
// Store the result in the appropriate pixel of the output maps
for(int x=0; x<dst_width; ++x) {
map_undist_warped_x32f.at<float>(y,x) = pts_dist[x].x;
map_undist_warped_y32f.at<float>(y,x) = pts_dist[x].y;
}
}
// Finally, convert the float maps to signed-integer maps for best efficiency of the remap function
cv::Mat map_undist_warped_x16s,map_undist_warped_y16s;
cv::convertMaps(map_undist_warped_x32f,map_undist_warped_y32f,map_undist_warped_x16s,map_undist_warped_y16s,CV_16SC2);
Note: H above is your perspective transform while Kshould be the camera matrix associated with the undistorted image, so it should be what in your code is called newCameraMatrix (which BTW is not an output argument of initUndistortRectifyMap). Depending on your specific data, there might also be some additional cases to handle (e.g. division by pt(2) when it might be zero, etc).

Answer 3

I found this question when looking to combine dewarping (undistortion) and projection tranforms in python, but there is no direct python answer.
Here is an direct conversion of BConic's answer in python
import numpy as np
import cv2
dst_width = ...
dst_height = ...
h_inv = np.linalg.inv(h)
k_inv = np.linalg.inv(new_camera_matrix)
map_x = np.zeros((dst_height, dst_width), dtype=np.float32)
map_y = np.zeros((dst_height, dst_width), dtype=np.float32)
for y in range(dst_height):
pts_undist_norm = np.zeros((dst_width, 3, 1))
for x in range(dst_width):
pt = np.array([x, y, 1]).reshape(3,1)
pt2 = k_inv # h_inv # pt
pts_undist_norm[x][0] = pt2[0]/pt2[2]
pts_undist_norm[x][1] = pt2[1]/pt2[2]
pts_undist_norm[x][2] = 1
r_vec = np.zeros((3,1))
t_vec = np.zeros((3,1))
pts_dist, _ = cv2.projectPoints(pts_undist_norm, r_vec, t_vec, intrinsic, distortion)
pts_dist = pts_dist.squeeze()
for x2 in range(dst_width):
map_x[y][x2] = pts_dist[x2][0]
map_y[y][x2] = pts_dist[x2][1]
# using CV_16SC2 introduced substantial image artifacts for me
map_x_final, map_y_final = cv2.convertMaps(map_x, map_y, cv2.CV_32FC1, cv2.CV_32FC1)
This is obviously really slow since it is using a double for loop and iterating through every pixel, so you can do it much faster using numpy. You should be able to do something similar in C++ to eliminate the for loops and do a single matrix multiplication.
import numpy as np
import cv2
dst_width = ...
dst_height = ...
h_inv = np.linalg.inv(h)
k_inv = np.linalg.inv(new_camera_matrix)
m_grid = np.mgrid[0:dst_width, 0:dst_height].reshape(2, dst_height*dst_width)
m_grid = np.insert(m_grid, 2, 1, axis=0)
m_grid_result = k_inv # h_inv # m_grid
pts_undist_norm = m_grid_result[:2, :] / m_grid_result[2, :]
pts_undist_norm = np.insert(pts_undist_norm, 2, 1, axis=0)
r_vec = np.zeros((3,1))
t_vec = np.zeros((3,1))
pts_dist = cv2.projectPoints(pts_undist_norm, r_vec, t_vec, intrinsic, distortion)
pts_dist = pts_dist.squeeze().astype(np.float32)
map_x = pts_dist[:, 0].reshape(dst_width, dst_height).swapaxes(0,1)
map_y = pts_dist[:, 1].reshape(dst_width, dst_height).swapaxes(0,1)
# using CV_16SC2 introduced substantial image artifacts for me
map_x_final, map_y_final = cv2.convertMaps(map_x, map_y, cv2.CV_32FC1, cv2.CV_32FC1)
This numpy implementation is roughly 25-75x faster than the first method.

Answer 4

I came across the same problem. I tried to implement AldurDisciple's answer. Instead of calculating transformation in a loop. I'm having a mat with mat.at <Vec2f>(x,y)=Vec2f(x,y) and applying perspectiveTransform to this mat. Add a 3rd channel of "1" to the result mat and apply projectPoints.
Here is my code
Mat xy(2000, 2500, CV_32FC2);
float *pxy = (float*)xy.data;
for (int y = 0; y < 2000; y++)
for (int x = 0; x < 2500; x++)
{
*pxy++ = x;
*pxy++ = y;
}
// perspective transformation of coordinates of destination image,
// which generates the map from destination image to norm points
Mat pts_undist_norm(2000, 2500, CV_32FC2);
Mat matPerspective =transRot3x3;
perspectiveTransform(xy, pts_undist_norm, matPerspective);
//add 3rd channel of 1
vector<Mat> channels;
split(pts_undist_norm, channels);
Mat channel3(2000, 2500, CV_32FC1, cv::Scalar(float(1.0)));
channels.push_back(channel3);
Mat pts_undist_norm_3D(2000, 2500, CV_32FC3);
merge(channels, pts_undist_norm_3D);
//projectPoints to extend the map from norm points back to the original captured image
pts_undist_norm_3D = pts_undist_norm_3D.reshape(0, 5000000);
Mat pts_dist(5000000, 1, CV_32FC2);
projectPoints(pts_undist_norm_3D, Mat::zeros(3, 1, CV_64F), Mat::zeros(3, 1, CV_64F), intrinsic, distCoeffs, pts_dist);
Mat maps[2];
pts_dist = pts_dist.reshape(0, 2000);
split(pts_dist, maps);
// apply map
remap(originalImage, skewedImage, maps[0], maps[1], INTER_LINEAR);
The transformation matrix used to map to norm points is a bit different from the one used in AldurDisciple's answer. transRot3x3 is composed from tvec and rvec generated by calibrateCamera.
double transData[] = { 0, 0, tvecs[0].at<double>(0), 0, 0,
tvecs[0].at<double>(1), 0, 0, tvecs[0].at<double>(2) };
Mat translate3x3(3, 3, CV_64F, transData);
Mat rotation3x3;
Rodrigues(rvecs[0], rotation3x3);
Mat transRot3x3(3, 3, CV_64F);
rotation3x3.col(0).copyTo(transRot3x3.col(0));
rotation3x3.col(1).copyTo(transRot3x3.col(1));
translate3x3.col(2).copyTo(transRot3x3.col(2));
Added:
I realized if the only needed map is the final map why not just use projectPoints to a mat with mat.at(x,y)=Vec2f(x,y,0) .
//generate a 3-channel mat with each entry containing it's own coordinates
Mat xyz(2000, 2500, CV_32FC3);
float *pxyz = (float*)xyz.data;
for (int y = 0; y < 2000; y++)
for (int x = 0; x < 2500; x++)
{
*pxyz++ = x;
*pxyz++ = y;
*pxyz++ = 0;
}
// project coordinates of destination image,
// which generates the map from destination image to source image directly
xyz=xyz.reshape(0, 5000000);
Mat pts_dist(5000000, 1, CV_32FC2);
projectPoints(xyz, rvecs[0], tvecs[0], intrinsic, distCoeffs, pts_dist);
Mat maps[2];
pts_dist = pts_dist.reshape(0, 2000);
split(pts_dist, maps);
//apply map
remap(originalImage, skewedImage, maps[0], maps[1], INTER_LINEAR);