Low-Cost digital cameras: calibration, stability analysis and applications

Abstract

Increasing resolution and reducing cost of off-the-shelf digital cameras are giving rise to their utilization in traditional and new photogrammetric activities, and allowing amateur users to generate high-quality photogrammetric products. For most, if not all photogrammetric applications, the internal metric characteristics of the implemented camera, customarily known as the Interior Orientation Parameters (IOP), need to be determined and analyzed. The derivation of these parameters is usually achieved by implementing a bundle adjustment with self-calibration procedure. The stability of the IOP is an issue in digital cameras since they are not built with photogrammetric applications in mind. This thesis introduces four quantitative methods for testing camera stability, where the degree of similarity between reconstructed bundles from two sets of IOP is evaluated. The experiments conducted in this research demonstrate the stability of several digital cameras. In addition, the need for different stability analysis measures for different geo-referencing techniques will be demonstrated. Some potential applications of low-cost digital cameras involving 3-D object space reconstruction will also be discussed.