Parameter-Free Lens Distortion Calibration of Central Cameras

At the core of many Computer Vision applications stands the need to define a mathematical model describing the imaging process. To this end, the pinhole model with radial distortion is probably the most commonly used, as it balances low complexity with a precision that is sufficient for most applications. On the other hand, unconstrained non-parametric models, despite being originally proposed to handle specialty cameras, have been shown to outperform the pinhole model, even with the simpler setups. Still, notwithstanding the higher accuracy, the inability of describing the imaging model by simple linear projective operators severely limits the use of standard algorithms with unconstrained models. In this paper we propose a parameter-free camera model where each imaging ray is constrained to a common optical center, forcing the camera to be central. Such model can be easily calibrated with a practical procedure which provides a convenient undistortion map that can be used to obtain a virtual pinhole camera. The proposed method can also be used to calibrate a stereo rig with a displacement map that simultaneously provides stereo rectification and corrects lens distortion.