Fish-eye-stereo calibration and epipolar rectification

The paper describes calibration and epipolar rectification for stereo with fish-eye optics. While stereo processing of classical cameras is state of the art for many applications, stereo with fish-eye cameras have been much less discussed in literature. This paper discusses the geometric calibration and the epipolar rectification as pre-requisite for stereo processing with fish-eyes. First, it surveys mathematical models to describe the projection. Then the paper presents a method of generating epipolar images which are suitable for stereo-processing with a field of view larger than 180° in vertical and horizontal viewing directions. One example with 3D-point measuring from real fish-eye images demonstrates the feasibility of the calibration and rectification procedure.