This article is an illustrated summary of a recent paper we presented at CVPR 2009.  We leverage some of the linear properties of optical flow fields to develop a method that automatically learns the relationship between camera motion and optical flow from data.  The method can handle arbitrary imaging systems including very severe distortion, curved mirrors, and multiple cameras.  Using this method, a robot can estimate it's motion in real time from video while detecting "motion anomalies" such as nearby or moving objects.