Scene based camera pose estimation in Manhattan worlds

This paper presents a principle for scene-related camera calibration in Manhattan worlds. The proposed estimation of extrinsic camera parameters from vanishing points represents a useful alternative to the traditional target-based calibration methods, especially in large urban or industrial environments. We analyse the effects of errors in the calculation of camera poses and derive general restrictions for the use of our approach. In addition, we present methods for calculating the position and orientation of several cameras to a world coordinate system and discuss the effect of imprecise or incorrectly calculated vanishing points. Our approach was evaluated with real images of a prototype for human-robot collaboration installed at ZBS e.V. The results were compared with a perspective n-Point (PnP) method.