  Visual localization is the problem of estimating a camera within a scene and
a key component in computer vision applications such as self-driving cars and
Mixed Reality. State-of-the-art approaches for accurate visual localization use
scene-specific representations, resulting in the overhead of constructing these
models when applying the techniques to new scenes. Recently, deep
learning-based approaches based on relative pose estimation have been proposed,
carrying the promise of easily adapting to new scenes. However, it has been
shown such approaches are currently significantly less accurate than
state-of-the-art approaches. In this paper, we are interested in analyzing this
behavior. To this end, we propose a novel framework for visual localization
from relative poses. Using a classical feature-based approach within this
framework, we show state-of-the-art performance. Replacing the classical
approach with learned alternatives at various levels, we then identify the
reasons for why deep learned approaches do not perform well. Based on our
analysis, we make recommendations for future work.

Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition