Computing a complete camera lens distortion model by planar homography

A method for computing a complete camera lens distortion model is proposed. With a view of a planar pattern, an iterative procedure is established to estimate the ideal homography under radial, tangential and prism distortions, by specially selected parameters of both radial and tangential distortions. The ideal image points which represent the correct positions of distorted image points can be computed with the approximate ideal homography. Further, the distortion models can be robustly computed with both sets of points, i.e., the distorted points and the corrected ones. Experimental results show that the proposed methods works well.

►We derive a whole lens distortion model on the image buffer plane based on some assumptions. ► The ideal homography between a planar pattern and the image buffer plane is correctly estimated. ► The ideal image points that are not observable are computed. ► The whole lens distortion model is correctly and robustly computed.