Comparative Analysis of Different Approaches for Multi-camera System Calibration

Abstract

Mobile mapping systems integrate a set of imaging sensors and a position and orientation system. To fully achieve the accuracy of the utilized sensors, a careful system calibration should be carried out. The system calibration involves individual sensor calibration and the mounting parameters calibration relating the system components. For multi-camera systems, the mounting parameters involve two sets of relative orientation parameters (ROP): the ROP among the cameras and the ROP between the cameras and the navigation sensors. This paper proposes a mathematical model for a single-step photogrammetric system calibration suitable for both single and multi-camera systems. As a special case of this model, indirect geo-referencing can be performed with relative orientation constraints (ROC). A general model which allows the estimation of ROP as wells as the incorporation of prior information on the ROP among the cameras during the integrated sensor orientation (ISO) is also proposed. This general model can be used for the indirect georeferencing with ROC as well as ISO without ROP among the cameras. To evaluate the performance of the single-step system calibration using the different models, real dataset captured by a hand-held multi-camera system is used. The system calibration is performed by using five different models and the performance is compared among these models.