Formula for covariance of stereo triangulation - matlab

I am trying to understand the paper Determining an initial image pair for fixing the scale of a 3d reconstruction from an image sequence by Beder and Steffen. They give a formula (Eq. (8)) for the covariance matrix of a triangulated point after stereo matching. However, when I implemented (rather carefully, I think) their method the matrix in question turned out to be non-symmetric, which is a bit of a problem for a covariance matrix.
Has anyone implemented their method before and has insight on what is going on? Perhaps I am missing something glaringly obvious?
EDIT:
Even without implementing anything, formula (8) feels odd. The matrix $N$ defined there simply cannot by symmetric, because is has $AX$ in one place and $X^{T}$ in the corresponding place when transposed. How can $AX=X$ be true?

A X should not be read together.
N(0,0) =
N(0,1) = X
N(1,0) = XT
N(1,1) = 0

Related

What is benefit to use SVD for solving Ax=b

I have a linear equation such as
Ax=b
where A is full rank matrix which its size is 512x512. b is a vector of 512x1. x is unknown vector. I want to find x, hence, I have some options for doing that
1.Using the normal way
inv(A)*b
2.Using SVD ( Singular value decomposition)
[U S V]=svd(A);
x = V*(diag(diag(S).^-1)*(U.'*b))
Both methods give the same result. So, what is benefit of using SVD to solve Ax=b, especially in the case A is a 2D matrix?
Welcome to the world of numerical methods, let me be your guide.
You, as a new person in this world wonders, "Why would I do something this difficult with this SVD stuff instead of the so commonly known inverse?! Im going to try it in Matlab!"
And no answer was found. That is, because you are not looking at the problem itself! The problems arise when you have an ill-conditioned matrix. Then the computing of the inverse is not possible numerically.
example:
A=[1 1 -1;
1 -2 3;
2 -1 2];
try to invert this matrix using inv(A). Youll get infinite.
That is, because the condition number of the matrix is very high (cond(A)).
However, if you try to solve it using SVD method (b=[1;-2;3]) you will get a result. This is still a hot research topic. Solving Ax=b systems with ill condition numbers.
As #Stewie Griffin suggested, the best way to go is mldivide, as it does a couple of things behind it.
(yeah, my example is not very good because the only solution of X is INF, but there is a way better example in this youtube video)
inv(A)*b has several negative sides. The main one is that it explicitly calculates the inverse of A, which is both time demanding, and may result in inaccuracies if values vary by many orders of magnitude.
Although it might be better than inv(A)*b, using svd is not the "correct" approach here. The MATLAB-way to do this is using mldivide, \. Using this, MATLAB chooses the best algorithm to solve the linear system based on its properties (Hermation, upper Hessenberg, real and positive diagonal, symmetric, diagonal, sparse etc.). Often, the solution will be a LU-triangulation with partial permutation, but it varies. You'll have a hard time beating MATLABs implementation of mldivide, but using svd might give you some more insight of the properties of the system if you actually investigates U, S, V. If you don't want to do that, do with mldivide.

Using matlab to obtain the vector fields and the angles made by the vector field on a closed curve?

Here is the given system I want to plot and obtain the vector field and the angles they make with the x axis. I want to find the index of a closed curve.
I know how to do this theoretically by choosing convenient points and see how the vector looks like at that point. Also I can always use
to compute the angles. However I am having trouble trying to code it. Please don't mark me down if the question is unclear. I am asking it the way I understand it. I am new to matlab. Can someone point me in the right direction please?
This is a pretty hard challenge for someone new to matlab, I would recommend taking on some smaller challenges first to get you used to matlab's conventions.
That said, Matlab is all about numerical solutions so, unless you want to go down the symbolic maths route (and in that case I would probably opt for Mathematica instead), your first task is to decide on the limits and granularity of your simulated space, then define them so you can apply your system of equations to it.
There are lots of ways of doing this - some more efficient - but for ease of understanding I propose this:
Define the axes individually first
xpts = -10:0.1:10;
ypts = -10:0.1:10;
tpts = 0:0.01:10;
The a:b:c syntax gives you the lower limit (a), the upper limit (c) and the spacing (b), so you'll get 201 points for the x. You could use the linspace notation if that suits you better, look it up by typing doc linspace into the matlab console.
Now you can create a grid of your coordinate points. You actually end up with three 3d matrices, one holding the x-coords of your space and the others holding the y and t. They look redundant, but it's worth it because you can use matrix operations on them.
[XX, YY, TT] = meshgrid(xpts, ypts, tpts);
From here on you can perform whatever operations you like on those matrices. So to compute x^2.y you could do
x2y = XX.^2 .* YY;
remembering that you'll get a 3d matrix out of it and all the slices in the third dimension (corresponding to t) will be the same.
Some notes
Matlab has a good builtin help system. You can type 'help functionname' to get a quick reminder in the console or 'doc functionname' to open the help browser for details and examples. They really are very good, they'll help enormously.
I used XX and YY because that's just my preference, but I avoid single-letter variable names as a general rule. You don't have to.
Matrix multiplication is the default so if you try to do XX*YY you won't get the answer you expect! To do element-wise multiplication use the .* operator instead. This will do a11 = b11*c11, a12 = b12*c12, ...
To raise each element of the matrix to a given power use .^rather than ^ for similar reasons. Likewise division.
You have to make sure your matrices are the correct size for your operations. To do elementwise operations on matrices they have to be the same size. To do matrix operations they have to follow the matrix rules on sizing, as will the output. You will find the size() function handy for debugging.
Plotting vector fields can be done with quiver. To plot the components separately you have more options: surf, contour and others. Look up the help docs and they will link to similar types. The plot family are mainly about lines so they aren't much help for fields without creative use of the markers, colours and alpha.
To plot the curve, or any other contour, you don't have to test the values of a matrix - it won't work well anyway because of the granularity - you can use the contour plot with specific contour values.
Solving systems of dynamic equations is completely possible, but you will be doing a numeric simulation and your results will again be subject to the granularity of your grid. If you have closed form solutions, like your phi expression, they may be easier to work with conceptually but harder to get working in matlab.
This kind of problem is tractable in matlab but it involves some non-basic uses which are pretty hard to follow until you've got your head round Matlab's syntax. I would advise to start with a 2d grid instead
[XX, YY] = meshgrid(xpts, ypts);
and compute some functions of that like x^2.y or x^2 - y^2. Get used to plotting them using quiver or plotting the coordinates separately in intensity maps or surfaces.

Plotting from 3D matrix in Matlab

I have a matrix which is 1*1*10000, the slightly odd dimensions are the result of the matrix algebra used to calculate it.
I simply want to be able to plot the 10000 data points contained in it, but matlab seems unable to do it?
Can someone please tell me how I can plot the data?
Seems simple but I really can't figure out how to do it!
Baz
yes you need to reduce the dimensions to a vector:
A = zeros(1,1,100)
vector = squeeze(A(1,1,:))
as when you'd access the third dimension this would only return a 3D-Matrix again:
z = A(1,1,:)
would NOT work. So use squeeze() ;-) Then plot as usual.
Doc-Link: http://www.mathworks.de/de/help/matlab/ref/squeeze.html
And as Ander pointed out in comments, no need to give any dimensions, as it removes singleton-dimensions by itself. So just use vector = squeeze(A). MATLAB recognizes the way to go itself.

Matlab recursive curve fitting with custom equations

I have a curve IxV. I also have an equation that I want to fit in this IxV curve, so I can adjust its constants. It is given by:
I = I01(exp((V-R*I)/(n1*vth))-1)+I02(exp((V-R*I)/(n2*vth))-1)
vth and R are constants already known, so I only want to achieve I01, I02, n1, n2. The problem is: as you can see, I is dependent on itself. I was trying to use the curve fitting toolbox, but it doesn't seem to work on recursive equations.
Is there a way to make the curve fitting toolbox work on this? And if there isn't, what can I do?
Assuming that I01 and I02 are variables and not functions, then you should set the problem up like this:
a0 = [I01 I02 n1 n2];
MinFun = #(a) abs(a(1)*(exp(V-R*I)/(a(3)*vth))-1) + a(2)*(exp((V-R*I)/a(4)*vth))-1) - I);
aout = fminsearch(a0,MinFun);
By subtracting I and taking the absolute value, the point where both sides are equal will be the point where MinFun is zero (minimized).
No, the CFTB cannot fit such recursively defined functions. And errors in I, since the true value of I is unknown for any point, will create a kind of errors in variables problem. All you have are the "measured" values for I.
The problem of errors in I MAY be serious, since any errors in I, or lack of fit, noise, model problems, etc., will be used in the expression itself. Then you exponentiate these inaccurate values, potentially casing a mess.
You may be able to use an iterative approach. Thus something like
% 0. Initialize I_pred
I_pred = I;
% 1. Estimate the values of your coefficients, for this model:
% (The curve fitting toolbox CAN solve this problem, given I_pred)
I = I01(exp((V-R*I_pred)/(n1*vth))-1)+I02(exp((V-R*I_pred)/(n2*vth))-1)
% 2. Generate new predictions for I_pred
I_pred = I01(exp((V-R*I_pred)/(n1*vth))-1)+I02(exp((V-R*I_pred)/(n2*vth))-1)
% Repeat steps 1 and 2 until the parameters from the CFTB stabilize.
The above pseudo-code will work only if your starting values are good, and there are not large errors/noise in the model/data. Even on a good day, the above approach may not converge well. But I see little hope otherwise.

Determinants of huge matrices in MATLAB

from a simulation problem, I want to calculate complex square matrices on the order of 1000x1000 in MATLAB. Since the values refer to those of Bessel functions, the matrices are not at all sparse.
Since I am interested in the change of the determinant with respect to some parameter (the energy of a searched eigenfunction in my case), I overcome the problem at the moment by first searching a rescaling factor for the studied range and then calculate the determinants,
result(k) = det(pre_factor*Matrix{k});
Now this is a very awkward solution and only works for matrix dimensions of, say, maximum 500x500.
Does anybody know a nice solution to the problem? Interfacing to Mathematica might work in principle but I have my doubts concerning feasibility.
Thank you in advance
Robert
Edit: I did not find a convient solution to the calculation problem since this would require changing to a higher precision. Instead, I used that
ln det M = trace ln M
which is, when I derive it with respect to k
A = trace(inv(M(k))*dM/dk)
So I at least had the change of the logarithm of the determinant with respect to k. From the physical background of the problem I could derive constraints on A which in the end gave me a workaround valid for my problem. Unfortunately I do not know if such a workaround could be generalized.
You should realize that when you multiply a matrix by a constant k, then you scale the determinant of the matrix by k^n, where n is the dimension of the matrix. So for n = 1000, and k = 2, you scale the determinant by
>> 2^1000
ans =
1.07150860718627e+301
This is of course a huge number, so you might expect that it should fail, since in double precision, MATLAB will only represent floating point numbers as large as realmax.
>> realmax
ans =
1.79769313486232e+308
There is no need to do all the work of recomputing that determinant, not that computing the determinant of a huge matrix like that is a terribly well-posed problem anyway.
If speed is not a concern, you may want to use det(e^A) = e^(tr A) and take as A some scaling constant times your matrix (so that A - I has spectral radius less than one).
EDIT: In MatLab, the log of a matrix (logm) is calculated via trigonalization. So it is better for you to compute the eigenvalues of your matrix and multiply them (or better, add their logarithm). You did not specify whether your matrix was symmetric or not: if it is, finding eigenvalues are easier than if it is not.
You said the current value of the determinant is about 10^-300.
Are you trying to get the determinant at a certain value, say 1? If so, rescaling is awkward: the matrix you are considering is ill-conditioned, and, considering the precision of the machine, you should consider the output determinant to be zero. It is impossible to get a reliable inverse in other words.
I would suggest to modify the columns or lines of the matrix rather than rescale it.
I used R to make a small test with a random matrix (random normal values), it seems the determinant should be clearly non-zero.
> n=100
> M=matrix(rnorm(n**2),n,n)
> det(M)
[1] -1.977380e+77
> kappa(M)
[1] 2318.188
This is not strictly a matlab solution, but you might want to consider using Mahout. It's specifically designed for large-scale linear algebra. (1000x1000 is no problem for the scales it's used to.)
You would call into java to pass data to/from Mahout.