Accurate calibration for a camera–projector measurement system based on structured light projection

The accurate calibration for a camera–projector measurement system based on structured light projection is important to the system measurement accuracy. This study proposes an improved systematic calibration method focusing on three key factors: calibration model, calibration artifact and calibration procedures. The calibration model better describes the camera and projector imaging process by considering higher to fourth order radial and tangential lens distortion. The calibration artifact provides a sufficient number of accurate 3D reference points uniformly distributed in a common world coordinate system. And the calibration procedures calibrate the camera and projector simultaneously based on the same reference points to eliminate the influences of the camera calibration error on the projector calibration. The experiments demonstrate that our calibration method can improve the measurement accuracy by 47%.