Calibration for Camera–Projector Pairs Using Spheres

A newly developed calibration algorithm for camera-projector system using spheres is presented in this paper. Previous studies have exploited image conics of sphere to calibrate the camera, whereas this approach can be strengthened to apply in the projector and ultimately achieve the overall calibration for single or multiple pairs of camera-projector. Following the concept of taking the projector as an inverse camera, we retrieve the image conic of the sphere on the projector plane based on a pole-polar relationship we found. At least 3 image conics on the image plane of each device are required to calculate the intrinsic parameters of the device. The extrinsic parameters for all devices in the system are determined by the position of sphere centers in each coordinates frame of the device. Based on the isotropy of the calibration object (sphere), this work is mainly interested in accomplishing the entire calibration for multiple camera-projector systems in which sensors surround a central observation volume. Experiments are conducted on both synthetic and real datasets to evaluate its performance.