Parameter-free radial distortion correction with center of distortion estimation

Richard Hartley*, Sing Bing Kang

*Corresponding author for this work

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    259 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    We propose a method of simultaneously calibrating the radial distortion function of a camera and the other internal calibration parameters. The method relies on the use of a planar (or, alternatively, nonplanar) calibration grid which is captured in several images. In this way, the determination of the radial distortion is an easy add-on to the popular calibration method proposed by Zhang [24]. The method is entirely noniterative and, hence, is extremely rapid and immune to the problem of local minima. Our method determines the radial distortion in a parameter-free way, not relying on any particular radial distortion model. This makes it applicable to a large range of cameras from narrow-angle to fish-eye lenses. The method also computes the center of radial distortion, which, we argue, is important in obtaining optimal results. Experiments show that this point may be significantly displaced from the center of the image or the principal point of the camera.

    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)1309-1321
    Number of pages13
    JournalIEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence
    Volume29
    Issue number8
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - Aug 2007

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