A release of a Camera Calibration Toolbox for Matlab

http://www.vision.caltech.edu/bouguetj/calib_doc/index.html#examples

Camera Calibration Toolbox for Matlab
 

   

This is a release of a Camera Calibration Toolbox for Matlab^® with a complete documentation. This document mayalso be used as a tutorial on camera calibration since it includesgeneral information about calibration, references and related links.
Pleasereport bugs/questions/suggestions to Jean-Yves Bouguet at "jbouguet at gmail dot com".

The C implementation of this toolbox is included in OpenCV, an open source computer vision library freely available online.

Content:

• System requirements
• Getting started
• Calibration examples
• Description of the calibration parameters
• Description of the functions in the calibration toolbox
• Doing your own calibration
• Undocumented features of the toolbox
• References
• A few links related to camera calibration

System requirements

This toolbox works on Matlab 5.x to Matlab 8.x on Windows, Unix and Linux systems and does not require any specific Matlab toolbox (for example, the optimization toolbox is not required).
Note: Please help me maintaining this toolbox by reporting them to me. Include in the email subject the type of the bug, and copy in the body the complete error message. Thank you!

Getting started

• Go to the download page, and retrieve the latest version of the completecamera calibration toolbox for Matlab.
• Store the individual matlab files (.m files) into a uniquefolderTOOLBOX_calib (default folder name).
• Run Matlaband add the location of the folder TOOLBOX_calib to the mainmatlab path. This procedure will let you call any of the matlabtoolbox functions from anywhere. Under Windows, this may be easilydone by using the path editing menu. Under Unix or Linux, you may usethe command path or addpath (use thehelp command for function description).
• Run the main matlab calibration function calib_gui (or calib).
  A mode selection window appears on the screen:
  
  
  This selection window lets you choose between two modes of operation of the toolbox: standard or memory efficient. In standard mode, all the images used for calibration are loaded into memory once and never read again from disk. This minimizes the overall number of disk access, and speeds up all image processing and image display functions. However, if the images are large, or there are a lot of them, then theOUT OF MEMORY error message may be encountered. If this is the case, the new memory efficient version of the toolbox may be used. In this mode, every image is loaded one by one and never stored permanently in memory.
  If you choose to run the standard version of the toolbox now, you can always switch to the other memory efficient mode later in case theOUT OF MEMORY error message is encountered. The two modes of operation are totally compatible (for input and output) and interchangeable.
  
  Since both modes have the exact same user interface, in the context of this documentation, let us select the standard mode by clicking on the top button of the window. The main calibration toolbox window appears on the screen (replacing the mode selection window):
  
  
  Note that the mode selection step can be bypassed altogether by directly running calib_gui(0) for the normal mode or calib_gui(1) for the memory efficient mode (tryhelp calib_gui for more information).
  
• You are now ready to use the toolbox for calibration.

Calibration examples

• First calibration example - Corner extraction, calibration, additional tools

  This section takes you through a complete calibration example based ona total of 20 (and 25) images of a planar checkerboard. This examplelets you learn how to use all the features of the toolbox: loadingcalibration images, extracting image corners, running the maincalibration engine, displaying the results, controlling accuracies,adding and suppressing images, undistorting images, exportingcalibration data to different formats... This example is highlyrecommended for someone who is just starting using the toolbox.
  
  

• Second calibrationexample - Calibration using Zhengyou Zhang's data

  This section shows you how to use the main calibration engine onZhengyou Zhang's data in a scripting mode. After going through thatexample, you will also know how to change the intrinsic camera model bychoosing which parameters to optimize. This example is highlyrecommended for someone who intends to use the main calibration enginein their own matlab script files.
  
  

• Third calibrationexample - Calibration using Heikkil�'s data (planar and non-planarcalibration rigs)

  Another calibration example on Heikkil�'s data that demonstrates that the mainoptimization engine also works when the calibration rig is non-planar.Try it, it takes only 30 seconds to run!
  
  

• Fourth calibrationexample - Calibration using Bakstein and Halir's data

  Another similar calibration example that runs the main optimizationengine on Bakstein and Halir's data. Try it!
  
  

• Fifth calibrationexample - Calibrating a stereo system, stereo image rectification and 3D stereo triangulation

  This example shows how to use the toolbox for calibrating a stereo system (intrinsically and extrinsically), rectifying stereo images, and performing 3D stereo triangulation. A new stereo toolbox called bystereo_gui is demonstrated.
  
  
  
  

• Sixth calibrationexample - Combining two independent calibrations of the same camera

  This example gives a quick demonstration of the script merge_two_datasets.m that lets you easily combine two calibration datasets of the same camera created independently.
  

Description of the calibration parameters

After calibration, the list of parameters may be stored in the matlabdata file Calib_Results.mat by clicking on Save. This sectiongives a detailed description of all the calibration parameters(Intrinsic and Extrinsic) and their corresponding matlab variablenames. In addition, one to one correspondences between our notationand Heikkil�'s andWillson's notations are given.

Description of the functions in the calibration toolbox

This sections gives a short description of all the main functions inthe calibration toolbox.

Doing your own calibration

This section contains some information regarding the initial steps ofcalibration: designing the calibration rig, naming the calibrationimages, image formats to use,... Very useful to get started. For thelazy ones, a calibration pattern is even provided!

Undocumented features of the toolbox

This section contains a list of features that have been added to thetoolbox since the first release of the documentation.

References

A list of reference papers that were used to design that toolbox.

A few links related to camera calibration

A short list of links related to camera calibration.

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Jean-Yves Bouguet
Last updated October 14^th, 2015

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