A robust system and method for estimating camera rotation in image sequences. A rotation-based reconstruction technique is described that is directed to performing reconstruction for image sequences with a zero or near-zero translation component. The technique may estimate only the rotation component of the camera motion in an image sequence, and may also estimate the camera intrinsic parameters if not known. Input to the technique may include an image sequence, and output may include the camera intrinsic parameters and the rotation parameters for all the images in the sequence. By only estimating a rotation component of camera motion, the assumption is made that the camera is not moving throughout the entire sequence. However, the camera is allowed to rotate and zoom arbitrarily. The technique may support both the case where the camera intrinsic parameters are known and the case where the camera intrinsic parameters are not known.