In perspective projection, parallel lines in the world (except the line parallel to image) willconverage to a vanishing point at infinity in image.
Proof:
If we have a point A ([Ax Ay Az]') and direction vector D ([Dx Dy Dz]'),
so any point ([X Y Z]') on the line represented by the point and vector can be written as:
[X Y Z]' = [Ax Ay Az]' + k*[Dx Dy Dz]' ................. (1)
where k is a factor to indicate that how far the point is away from A.
Base on the property of perspective projection:
x = f*(X/Z)
y = f*(Y/Z)
where x and y is the point in image coordinate.
Substitute equation (1) we get:
x = f*(Ax + kDx)/(Az + kDz)
y = f*(Ay + kDy)/(Az + kDz)
If the k is infinite, the Ax, Ay and Az can be neglected compared to kDx, kDy and kDz, which makes above equation to be:
x = f*(Dx/Dz)
y = f*(Dy/Dz)
(x, y) is the coordinate of the vanishing point, which is independent to the starting point A.
Nearer objects are lower in the image
proof:
The equation of the ground plane is Y = -h, h is the height of camera.
A point on the ground plane will have y coordinate as: y = -f*(h/Z)
If the point is far away from as:
Z -> ∞
y -> 0
If the point is a nearer point, y will be more negative, since Z is smaller and the whole f*(h/Z) term become larger.
Nearer objects look bigger:
Consider a bottom point and top point of a object which locate on the ground.
Bottom at (X, -h, Z)
Top at (X, L-h, Z)
where h again is the height of camera.
Bottom projected to: (f*X/Z, -f*h/Z)
Top projected to: (f*X/Z, f*(L-h)/Z)
So the difference of the y coord is: f*L/Z
When Z is larger the difference is smaller which results in smaller object, vice versa.