Multi-camera System Calibration with Built-in Relative Orientation Constraints (Part 2) Automation, Implementation, and Experimental Results

Abstract

Multi-camera systems have been widely used as cost-effective tools for the collection of geospatial data for various applications. In order to fully achieve the potential accuracy of these systems for object space reconstruction, careful system calibration should be carried out prior to data collection. Since the structural integrity of the involved cameras' components and system mounting parameters cannot be guaranteed over time, multi-camera system should be frequently calibrated to confirm the stability of the estimated parameters. Therefore, automated techniques are needed to facilitate and speed up the system calibration procedure. The automation of the multi-camera system calibration approach, which was proposed in the first part of this paper, is contingent on the automated detection, localization, and identification of the object space signalized targets in the images. In this paper, the automation of the proposed camera calibration procedure through automatic target extraction and labelling approaches will be presented. The introduced automated system calibration procedure is then implemented for a newly-developed multi-camera system while considering the optimum configuration for the data collection. Experimental results from the implemented system calibration procedure are finally presented to verify the feasibility the proposed automated procedure. Qualitative and quantitative evaluation of the estimated system calibration parameters from two-calibration sessions is also presented to confirm the stability of the cameras' interior orientation and system mounting parameters.