Opencv virtually camera rotating/translating for bird's eye view - opencv

Question

I've a calibrated camera where I exactly know the intrinsic and extrinsic data. Also the height of the camera is known. Now I want to virtually rotate the camera for getting a Bird's eye view, such that I can build the Homography matrix with the three rotation angles and the translation.
I know that 2 points can be transformed from one image to another via Homography as
x=K*(R-t*n/d)K^-1 * x'
there are a few things I'd like to know now:
if I want to bring back the image coordinate in ccs, I have to multiply it with K^-1, right? As Image coordinate I use (x',y',1) ?
Then I need to built a rotation matrix for rotating the ccs...but which convention should I use? And how do I know how to set up my WCS?
The next thing is the normal and the distance. Is it right just to take three points lying on the ground and compute the normal out of them? and is the distance then the camera height?
Also I'd like to know how I can change the height of the virtually looking bird view camera, such that I can say I want to see the ground plane from 3 meters height. How can I use the unit "meter" in the translation and homography Matrix?
So far for now, it would be great if someone could enlighten and help me. And please don't suggest generating the bird view with "getperspective", I ve already tried that but this way is not suitable for me.
Senna

Answer 1

That is the code i would advise (it's one of mine), to my mind it answers a lot of your questions,
If you want the distance, i would precise that it is in the Z matrix, the (4,3) coefficient.
Hope it will help you...
Mat source=imread("Whatyouwant.jpg");
int alpha_=90., beta_=90., gamma_=90.;
int f_ = 500, dist_ = 500;
Mat destination;
string wndname1 = getFormatWindowName("Source: ");
string wndname2 = getFormatWindowName("WarpPerspective: ");
string tbarname1 = "Alpha";
string tbarname2 = "Beta";
string tbarname3 = "Gamma";
string tbarname4 = "f";
string tbarname5 = "Distance";
namedWindow(wndname1, 1);
namedWindow(wndname2, 1);
createTrackbar(tbarname1, wndname2, &alpha_, 180);
createTrackbar(tbarname2, wndname2, &beta_, 180);
createTrackbar(tbarname3, wndname2, &gamma_, 180);
createTrackbar(tbarname4, wndname2, &f_, 2000);
createTrackbar(tbarname5, wndname2, &dist_, 2000);
imshow(wndname1, source);
while(true) {
double f, dist;
double alpha, beta, gamma;
alpha = ((double)alpha_ - 90.)*PI/180;
beta = ((double)beta_ - 90.)*PI/180;
gamma = ((double)gamma_ - 90.)*PI/180;
f = (double) f_;
dist = (double) dist_;
Size taille = source.size();
double w = (double)taille.width, h = (double)taille.height;
// Projection 2D -> 3D matrix
Mat A1 = (Mat_<double>(4,3) <<
1, 0, -w/2,
0, 1, -h/2,
0, 0, 0,
0, 0, 1);
// Rotation matrices around the X,Y,Z axis
Mat RX = (Mat_<double>(4, 4) <<
1, 0, 0, 0,
0, cos(alpha), -sin(alpha), 0,
0, sin(alpha), cos(alpha), 0,
0, 0, 0, 1);
Mat RY = (Mat_<double>(4, 4) <<
cos(beta), 0, -sin(beta), 0,
0, 1, 0, 0,
sin(beta), 0, cos(beta), 0,
0, 0, 0, 1);
Mat RZ = (Mat_<double>(4, 4) <<
cos(gamma), -sin(gamma), 0, 0,
sin(gamma), cos(gamma), 0, 0,
0, 0, 1, 0,
0, 0, 0, 1);
// Composed rotation matrix with (RX,RY,RZ)
Mat R = RX * RY * RZ;
// Translation matrix on the Z axis change dist will change the height
Mat T = (Mat_<double>(4, 4) <<
1, 0, 0, 0,
0, 1, 0, 0,
0, 0, 1, dist,
0, 0, 0, 1);
// Camera Intrisecs matrix 3D -> 2D
Mat A2 = (Mat_<double>(3,4) <<
f, 0, w/2, 0,
0, f, h/2, 0,
0, 0, 1, 0);
// Final and overall transformation matrix
Mat transfo = A2 * (T * (R * A1));
// Apply matrix transformation
warpPerspective(source, destination, transfo, taille, INTER_CUBIC | WARP_INVERSE_MAP);
imshow(wndname2, destination);
waitKey(30);
}

Answer 2

This code works for me but I don't know why the Roll and Pitch angles are exchanged. When I change "alpha", the image is warped in pitch and when I change "beta" the image in warped in roll. So, I changed my rotation matrix, as can be seen below.
Also, the RY has a signal error. You can check Ry at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotation_matrix.
The rotation metrix I use:
Mat RX = (Mat_<double>(4, 4) <<
1, 0, 0, 0,
0, cos(beta), -sin(beta), 0,
0, sin(beta), cos(beta), 0,
0, 0, 0, 1);
Mat RY = (Mat_<double>(4, 4) <<
cos(alpha), 0, sin(alpha), 0,
0, 1, 0, 0,
-sin(alpha), 0, cos(alpha), 0,
0, 0, 0, 1);
Mat RZ = (Mat_<double>(4, 4) <<
cos(gamma), -sin(gamma), 0, 0,
sin(gamma), cos(gamma), 0, 0,
0, 0, 1, 0,
0, 0, 0, 1);
Regards