Model-Based Camera Calibration Using Analysis by Synthesis Techniques

A new technique for the determination of extrinsic and intrinsic camera parameters is presented. Instead of searching for a limited number of discrete feature points of the calibration test object, the entire image captured with the camera is exploited to robustly determine the unknown parameters. Shape and texture of the test object are described by a 3-D computer graphics model. With this 3-D representation, synthetic images are rendered and matched with the original frames in an analysis by synthesis loop. Therefore, arbitrary test objects with sophisticated patterns can be used to determine the camera settings. The scheme can easily be extended to deal with multiple frames for a higher intrinsic parameter accuracy.