Rigid Alignment of Two Sets of Points

AWM
1 Problem denition
Let X
1
. . . X
n
and Y
1
. . . Y
n
two sets of points. Let
T : R
2
R
2
T(x) = R

x +
be a rigid transformation, where > 0 and
R

cos sin
sin cos

Find the rigid transformation T that minimizes the error

E(, , ) =
1
2

i
|T(X
i
) Y
i
|
2
(1)
1.1 Error minimization
Assume for simplicity that = 0. This can always be arranged by translating X
1
. . . X
n
by the vector determied
by the centers of mass of the two sets of points.
Additionally, let R

be of the form
R =

c s
s c

and minimize
E(, c, s) =
1
2

|T(X) Y |
2
(2)
subject to
c
2
+s
2
= 1
2 Gradient computation
E =

< T(X), T(X) Y >

E =

< RX , RX Y >
=

|X|
2
c

< X, Y > s

< R
/2
X, Y > (3)
1

c
E =

< X , RX Y >
=
2
c

|X|
2

< X, Y > (4)

s
E =

< R
/2
X , RX Y >
=
2
s

|X|
2

< R
/2
X, Y > (5)
Let us denote
=

|X|
2
=

< X, Y >
=

< R
/2
X, Y > (6)
We must solve E = 0 (weve used c
2
+s
2
= 1 in eqn 3). By eqn. 3, 4 and 5 we have
c s = 0

2
c = 0

2
s = 0
Solving for c and s from 2-nd and 3-rd equation and substituting in the rst, we get
=

2

+

2

so
=

2
+
2

(7)
c =

2
+
2
(8)
s =

2
+
2
(9)
where , and are given by eqn 6.
2
Figure 1: Blue: the X points. Red: the Y points. Green: T(X).
3