In this paper, we propose a Charuco board-based omnidirectional camera calibration method to solve the problem of conventional methods requiring overly complicated calibration procedures. Specifically, the proposed method can easily and precisely provide two-dimensional and three-dimensional coordinates of patterned feature points by arranging the omnidirectional camera in the Charuco board-based cube structure. Then, using the coordinate information of the feature points, an intrinsic calibration of each camera constituting the omnidirectional camera can be performed by estimating the perspective projection matrix. Furthermore, without an additional calibration structure, an extrinsic calibration of each camera can be performed, even though only part of the calibration structure is included in the captured image. Compared to conventional methods, the proposed method exhibits increased reliability, because it does not require additional adjustments to the mirror angle or the positions of several pattern boards. Moreover, the proposed method calibrates independently, regardless of the number of cameras comprising the omnidirectional camera or the camera rig structure. In the experimental results, for the intrinsic parameters, the proposed method yielded an average reprojection error of 0.37 pixels, which was better than that of conventional methods. For the extrinsic parameters, the proposed method had a mean absolute error of 0.90° for rotation displacement and a mean absolute error of 1.32 mm for translation displacement.

https://www.mdpi.com/2079-9292/7/12/421/pdf

Charuco Board-Based Omnidirectional Camera Calibration Method

Recently, miniaturised hyperspectral sensors operable from small unmanned airborne vehicle platforms have entered the market. The emerging hyperspectral imaging technologies, based on frame cameras and tuneable filters, are attractive alternatives to hyperspectral pushbroom sensors. This paper addresses the geometric calibration process of a hyperspectral frame camera based on a Fabry–Perot interferometer. However, the addition of more optical elements in front of the image sensor can affect the parameters related to the internal geometry of the camera, and a deficiency in knowledge regarding these parameters can have a critical effect on the accuracy of 3D measurements in photogrammetric applications. The experiments focused on assessing the self-calibrating bundle adjustment to verify the behaviour of the interior parameters, considering different spectral bands. The results indicated that the applied self-calibration method can accurately characterise the interior parameters of this camera and that one set of parameters is required for each internal sensor.

Geometric Calibration of a Hyperspectral Frame Camera

We present a multi-scale camera array to capture and synthesize gigapixel videos in an efficient way. Our acquisition setup contains a reference camera with a short-focus lens to get a large field-of-view video and a number of unstructured long-focus cameras to capture local-view details. Based on this new design, we propose an iterative feature matching and image warping method to independently warp each local-view video to the reference video. The key feature of the proposed algorithm is its robustness to and high accuracy for the huge resolution gap (more than 8x resolution gap between the reference and the local-view videos), camera parallaxes, complex scene appearances and color inconsistency among cameras. Experimental results show that the proposed multi-scale camera array and cross resolution video warping scheme is capable of generating seamless gigapixel video without the need of camera calibration and large overlapping area constraints between the local-view cameras.

Multiscale gigapixel video: A cross resolution image matching and warping approach

Fisheye cameras offer a large field of view, which is important for several robotics applications as a larger field of view allows for covering a large area with a single image. In contrast to classical cameras, however, fisheye cameras cannot be approximated well using the pinhole camera model and this renders the computation of depth information from fisheye stereo image pairs more complicated. In this work, we analyze the combination of an epipolar rectification model for fisheye stereo cameras with existing dense methods. This has the advantage that existing dense stereo systems can be applied as a black-box even with cameras that have field of view of more than 180° to obtain dense disparity information. We thoroughly investigate the accuracy potential of such fisheye stereo systems using image data from our UAV. The empirical analysis is based on image pairs of a calibrated fisheye stereo camera system and two state-of-the-art algorithms for dense stereo applied to adequately rectified image pairs from fisheye stereo cameras. The canonical stochastic model for sensor points assumes homogeneous uncertainty and we generalize this model based on an empirical analysis using a test scene consisting of mutually orthogonal planes. We show that: (1) the combination of adequately rectified fisheye image pairs and dense methods provides dense 3D point clouds at 6–7 Hz on our autonomous multicopter UAV; (2) the uncertainty of points depends on their angular distance from the optical axis; (3) how to estimate the variance component as a function of that distance; and (4) how the improved stochastic model improves the accuracy of the scene points.

On the Accuracy of Dense Fisheye Stereo

Omnidirectional vision systems that enable 360° imaging have been widely used in several research areas, including close-range photogrammetry, which allows the accurate 3D measurement of objects. To achieve accurate results in Photogrammetric applications, it is necessary to model and calibrate these systems. The major contribution of this paper relates to the rigorous geometric modeling and calibration of a catadioptric, omnidirectional vision system that is composed of a wide-angle lens camera and a conic mirror. The indirect orientation of the omnidirectional images can also be estimated using this rigorous mathematical model. When calibrating the system, which is composed of a wide-angle camera and a conic mirror, misalignment of the conical mirror axis with respect to the camera’s optical axis is a critical problem that must be considered in mathematical models. The interior calibration technique developed in this paper encompasses the following steps: wide-angle camera calibration; conic mirror modeling; and estimation of the transformation parameters between the camera and conic mirror reference systems. The main advantage of the developed technique is that it does not require accurate physical alignment between the camera and conic mirror axis. The exterior orientation is based on the properties of the conic mirror reflection. Experiments were conducted with images collected from a calibration field, and the results verified that the catadioptric omnidirectional system allows for the generation of ground coordinates with high geometric quality, provided that rigorous photogrammetric processes are applied.

Calibration of a catadioptric omnidirectional vision system with conic mirror

The aim of this paper is to present results achieved with a 3D terrestrial calibration field, designed for calibrating digital cameras and omnidirectional sensors. This terrestrial calibration field is composed of 139 ARUCO coded targets. Some experiments were performed using a Nikon D3100 digital camera with 8mm Samyang Bower fisheye lens. The camera was calibrated in this terrestrial test field using a conventional bundle adjustment with the Collinearity and mathematical models specially designed for fisheye lenses. The CMC software (Calibration with Multiple Cameras), developed in-house, was used for the calibration trials. This software was modified to use fisheye models to which the Conrady-Brown distortion equations were added. The target identification and image measurements of its four corners were performed automatically with a public software. Several experiments were performed with 16 images and the results were presented and compared. Besides the calibration of fish-eye cameras, the field was designed for calibration of a catadrioptic system and brief informations on the calibration of this unit will be provided in the paper.

/pdf/calibration-of-panoramic-cameras-with-coded-targets-and-a-3d-1a1ybifssv.pdf

S. L. A. Silva

Papers

Calibration of panoramic cameras with coded targets and a 3d calibration field