Extrinsic calibration of a non-overlapping camera network based on close-range photogrammetry.

Abstract

In this paper, an extrinsic calibration method for a non-overlapping camera network is presented based on close-range photogrammetry. The method does not require calibration targets or the cameras to be moved. The visual sensors are relatively motionless and do not see the same area at the same time. The proposed method combines the multiple cameras using some arbitrarily distributed encoded targets. The calibration procedure consists of three steps: reconstructing the three-dimensional (3D) coordinates of the encoded targets using a hand-held digital camera, performing the intrinsic calibration of the camera network, and calibrating the extrinsic parameters of each camera with only one image. A series of experiments, including 3D reconstruction, rotation, and translation, are employed to validate the proposed approach. The results show that the relative error for the 3D reconstruction is smaller than 0.003%, the relative errors of both rotation and translation are less than 0.066%, and the re-projection error is only 0.09 pixels.