Optics and Lasers in Engineering 147 (2021) 106733

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Optics and Lasers in Engineering

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/optlaseng

Calibration of stereo cameras with a marked-crossed fringe pattern

Xiangcheng Chen a,b, Ying Chen a,b, Xiaokai Song a,b, Wenyuan Liang c, Yuwei Wang d,∗
a
School of Automation, Wuhan University of Technology, Wuhan 430070, China
b
Key Laboratory of Icing and Anti/De-icing, China Aerodynamics Research and Development Center, Mianyang 621000, China
c
National Research Center for Rehabilitation Technical Aids, Beijing, China 100176, China
d
College of Engineering, Anhui Agricultural University, Hefei 230036, China

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Keywords: Stereo cameras have been widely used for three-dimensional (3D) imaging, and their performances are highly
Stereo cameras depended on the calibration accuracy. This paper presents a marked-crossed fringe pattern for the calibration of
Crossed fringe stereo cameras. Some coded markers are also encoded into the crossed fringe pattern, and the feature points are
Phase target
encoded into the carried phase. Two wrapped phase maps are recovered by using the Fourier transform, and the
Global coding
markers are extracted and decoded for absolute phase unwrapping. Referring to the absolute phase values, the
Feature points
Fourier transform one-to-one mapping between the world points and the image points can be established to calibrate the stereo
cameras. Compared with the traditional method, the proposed method adopts global coding, which can flexibly
select any part of the feature points for calibration and obtain high-precision camera parameters. Simulations
and experiments show the effectiveness of the method.

1. Introduction
Geometric calibration plays an important role for machine vision sys-
tems based on stereo cameras, which attempts to estimate the intrinsic
and extrinsic parameters that are required to triangulate in the measure-
ment volume [1]. In general, some precise targets with a large number
of feature points are used for camera calibration, and the detection pre-
cision will directly affect the calibration accuracy [2]. Therefore, some
researches have focused on designing targets with obvious features that
can be accurately detected in the target images.
Currently, various targets have been designed for the calibration of
stereo cameras [3], such as 3D targets [4-6], 2D targets [7-9], and 1D
targets [10,11]. In addition, there are several available methods based
on spheres [12,13], auxiliary equipment [14-16], and self-calibration
[17]. The 3D targets with high calibration accuracy, but it is difficult
to manufacture and expensive. The 1D targets has simple structure and
only a few collinear feature points, so it is difficult to achieve high cal-
ibration accuracy. The 2D targets just combine the advantages of the
two and avoid the disadvantages, and has the advantages of low cost,
simple structure and convenient use.
As well known, chessboard and circles are the two most common
patterns of the 2D targets. The chessboard contains many squares, the
corners of which are extracted as feature points. Similarly, the circular
pattern contains many circles, and the center is extracted as the feature
points. To our knowledge, the pattern should be placed within the over-
lapping field-of-view (FOV) of stereo cameras to obtain complete pattern
images, which introduces some natural inconveniences for the practical
calibration of stereo cameras.
Recently, several active targets based on phase-shifting algorithms
have been developed for camera calibration. These active targets in-
clude sinusoidal fringes [18-26], circular fringes [27-29], and some oth-
ers [30-32]. Sinusoidal fringes always require six or more patterns to
carry two phase maps, that can generate abundant feature points. Cir-
cular fringes require fewer patterns than sinusoidal fringes, but the num-
ber of feature points is limited. Although these active targets are robust
against camera defocusing, multiple pattern images should be captured
per camera pose, hence limits their application ranges. Crossed fringes
provide an optional solution which requires only one pattern in each po-
sition for camera calibration [33-35]. Based on Fourier transform, the
feature points can be extracted with high-accuracy and high robustness.
These feature points, however, do not have the global coding features
which limits the flexibility of the crossed fringes calibration patterns.
This paper presents a marked-crossed fringe pattern with global cod-
ing to calibrate stereo cameras, which can flexibly select any part of
the feature points for calibration and obtain high-precision camera pa-
rameters. Simulations and experiments have been carried out, and their
results demonstrate the performance of the proposed method.
2. Camera model
2.1. Pinhole camera model
This paper uses the well-known pinhole camera model, as shown in
Fig. 1. In the figure, given a 3D world point 𝑷 = [𝑋, 𝑌 , 𝑍 ], it corresponds

∗
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: chenxgcg@ustc.edu (X. Chen).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.optlaseng.2021.106733
Received 2 March 2021; Received in revised form 25 May 2021; Accepted 27 June 2021
Available online 10 July 2021
0143-8166/© 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
X. Chen, Y. Chen, X. Song et al. Optics and Lasers in Engineering 147 (2021) 106733

Fig. 1. The pinhole camera model.
the coordinate systems of the world, left camera and right camera, re-
spectively. The relationship between the camera coordinate system and
the world coordinate system can be expressed as follows:
{
𝑷 𝑙 =𝑹𝑤𝑙 𝑷 𝑤 + 𝒕𝑤𝑙
(6)
𝑷 𝑟 =𝑹𝑤𝑟 𝑷 𝑤 + 𝒕𝑤𝑟
where 𝑷 𝑤 , 𝑷 𝑙 and 𝑷 𝑟 are the coordinates of the same point respectively
defined in 𝑂𝑤 −𝑋𝑤 𝑌𝑤 𝑍𝑤 , 𝑂𝑙 −𝑋𝑙 𝑌𝑙 𝑍𝑙 and 𝑂𝑟 −𝑋𝑟 𝑌𝑟 𝑍𝑟 ; 𝑹𝑤𝑙 and 𝒕𝑤𝑙 is the
translation vector and rotation matrix from the left camera coordinate
system to the world coordinate system, respectively; 𝑹𝑤𝑟 and 𝒕𝑤𝑟 is the
translation vector and rotation matrix from the right camera coordi-
nate system to the world coordinate system, respectively. According to
Eq. (6), the relationship between the two camera coordinate systems can
be expressed as follows:
𝑷 𝑟 =𝑹𝑙𝑟 𝑷 𝑙 + 𝒕𝑙𝑟 = 𝑹𝑤𝑟 𝑹𝑇𝑤𝑙 𝑷 𝑙 + (𝒕𝑤𝑟 − 𝑹𝑤𝑟 𝑹𝑇𝑤𝑙 𝒕𝑤𝑙 ) (7)
where 𝑹𝑙𝑟 and 𝒕𝑙𝑟 are the rotation matrix and translation vector between
the coordinate systems of the two cameras, and the estimation of them
is often referred as the extrinsic calibration of the stereo cameras.

3. Calibration theory

3.1. Crossed fringe pattern

To calibrate the stereo cameras, this paper uses a marked-crossed

fringe pattern as the calibration target. As shown in Fig. 3(a), the inten-
sity of the crossed fringe pattern can be described as:
𝐽 (𝑥, 𝑦) = 𝑎 + 𝑏𝑥 cos(2𝜋𝑥∕𝑝𝑥 ) + 𝑏𝑦 cos(2𝜋𝑦∕𝑝𝑦 ) (8)
Fig. 2. The model of stereo cameras. where (𝑥, 𝑦) denotes the world coordinates of the fringe pattern; 𝑎, 𝑏𝑥 , 𝑏𝑦
are three constants, and we set 𝑎 = 1∕2 and 𝑏𝑥 = 𝑏𝑦 = 1∕4 in this paper;
𝑝𝑥 and 𝑝𝑦 are the fringe periods along 𝑥 and 𝑦 axes, respectively. The
to a 2D image point 𝒑 = [𝑢, 𝑣]. The relationship between 𝑷 and 𝒑 can be captured images of the fringe pattern can be expressed as:
described as: [ ]
𝐼(𝑢, 𝑣) = 𝐴(𝑢, 𝑣) + 𝐵𝑢 (𝑢, 𝑣) cos 𝜙𝑢 (𝑢, 𝑣)
[ ] (9)
𝜆[𝒑, 1]𝑇 = 𝑲 [𝑹, 𝒕][𝑷 , 1]𝑇 (1) +𝐵𝑣 (𝑢, 𝑣) cos 𝜙𝑣 (𝑢, 𝑣)

and where (𝑢, 𝑣) denotes a point on the camera sensor plane; 𝐴 denotes the
intensity of the background; 𝐵𝑢 and 𝐵𝑣 denote the intensities of the mod-
⎡𝑓 𝑢 𝛾 𝑢0 ⎤ ⎡𝑟11 𝑟12 𝑟13 ⎤ ⎡𝑡𝑥 ⎤ ulation lights; 𝜙𝑢 and 𝜙𝑣 denote the phase distributions along u and 𝑣
𝑲 =⎢0 𝑓𝑣 𝑣0 ⎥, 𝑹 = ⎢𝑟21 𝑟22 𝑟23 ⎥, 𝒕 = ⎢𝑡𝑦 ⎥ (2)
⎢ ⎥ ⎢ ⎥ ⎢ ⎥ axes, and note that they are also the transformed version of the encoded
⎣0 0 1⎦ ⎣𝑟31 𝑟32 𝑟33 ⎦ ⎣ 𝑡𝑧 ⎦ phases 2𝜋𝑥∕𝑝𝑥 and 2𝜋𝑦∕𝑝𝑦 . Generally, there are two main steps to re-
where 𝜆 is an arbitrary scale factor; 𝑹 and 𝒕 denote rotation matrix and cover the absolute phase distributions: wrapped phase calculation and
translation vector respectively, and [𝑹, 𝒕] denotes the extrinsic matrix; absolute phase unwrapping.
𝑲 denotes the intrinsic matrix with the focal lengths [𝑓𝑢 , 𝑓𝑣 ], the prin- This paper employs the Fourier fringe analysis algorithm to calculate
cipal points [𝑢0 , 𝑣0 ] and a skew factor 𝛾. In general, the rotation angles the wrapped phase. As shown in Fig. 3(b), the Fourier transform of the
[𝜃𝑥 , 𝜃𝑦 , 𝜃𝑧 ] are related to 𝑹 through the Rodrigues formula. pattern image 𝐼(𝑢, 𝑣) can be expressed as:
Besides, lens distortions are so common that should be taken into 𝑄(𝑓𝑢 , 𝑓𝑣 ) = 𝑄0 (𝑓𝑢 , 𝑓𝑣 ) + 𝑄𝑢 (𝑓𝑢 − 𝑓𝑢0 , 𝑓𝑣 ) + 𝑄∗𝑢 (𝑓𝑢 + 𝑓𝑢0 , 𝑓𝑣 )
consideration. The relationship between the observed distorted points (10)
+𝑄𝑣 (𝑓𝑢 , 𝑓𝑣 − 𝑓𝑣0 ) + 𝑄∗𝑣 (𝑓𝑢 , 𝑓𝑣 + 𝑓𝑣0 )
(𝑢𝑑 , 𝑣𝑑 ) and the undistorted pixel points (𝑢, 𝑣) can be described as:
where 𝑄0 denotes the Fourier spectra of 𝐴, or the zero order spectra; 𝑄𝑢
[𝑥, 𝑦, 1]𝑇 = 𝑲 −1 [𝑢, 𝑣, 1]𝑇 (3) denotes the Fourier spectra of 12 𝐵𝑢 e𝑖𝜙𝑢 , or the fundamental spectra along
u axis; and 𝑄∗𝑢 denotes the conjugate of 𝑄𝑢 ; similarly, 𝑄𝑣 denotes the
[ ] ( )[𝑥] Fourier spectra of 12 𝐵𝑣 e𝑖𝜙𝑣 , or the fundamental spectra along v axis; and
𝑥𝑑
= 1 + 𝑘𝑟1 + 𝑘𝑟2
2 4
(4) 𝑄∗𝑣 denotes the conjugate of 𝑄𝑣 . If we select a suitable filter to separate
𝑦𝑑 𝑦
𝑄𝑢 and 𝑄𝑣 , and perform the inverse Fourier transform to obtain 𝑞𝑢 =
[ ]𝑇 [ ]𝑇
1
𝐵 e𝑖𝜙𝑢 and 𝑞𝑣 = 12 𝐵𝑣 e𝑖𝜙𝑣 , then 𝜙𝑢 and 𝜙𝑣 can be derived from 𝑞𝑢 and
2 𝑢
𝑢𝑑 , 𝑣𝑑 , 1 = 𝑲 𝑥𝑑 , 𝑦𝑑 , 1 (5) 𝑞𝑣 , as shown in Figs. 3(c)-(d). Unfortunately, 𝜙𝑢 and 𝜙𝑣 obtained above
are always wrapped in the range of [−𝜋, +𝜋], thus phase unwrapping
where k1 and k2 are radial distortion parameters, and 𝑟2 = 𝑥2 + 𝑦2 . Once
process should be carried out to recover the absolute phase maps Φ𝑢
the one-to-one mapping between 𝑷 and 𝒑 is built from feature detection
and Φ𝑣 . In general, the relationship between the wrapped phase 𝜙 and
of calibration targets, these unknown camera parameters can be esti-
the absolute phase Φ can be described as Φ = 𝜙 + 2𝜋𝑘. The key of phase
mated.
unwrapping is to find the integer number 𝑘, or the fringe order.

2.2. Stereo camera model 3.2. Marked-crossed fringe pattern

Fig. 2 shows the model of stereo cameras which uses two cameras as To determine the fringe order, this paper designs a marked-crossed
an example. Where 𝑂𝑤 −𝑋𝑤 𝑌𝑤 𝑍𝑤 , 𝑂𝑙 −𝑋𝑙 𝑌𝑙 𝑍𝑙 and 𝑂𝑟 −𝑋𝑟 𝑌𝑟 𝑍𝑟 represent fringe pattern, as shown in Fig. 4. Some coded markers are encoded into

2
X. Chen, Y. Chen, X. Song et al.
Fig. 4. The marked-crossed fringe pattern.
the crossed fringe pattern to distinguish different fringe periods on the
basis of a code sequence 𝐶𝑆, and each fringe period along horizontal or
vertical directions is assigned to a 1-bit code in order. If the 1-bit code
of the current period is ‘0’, thus no markers are added to this period. On
the contrary, if the 1-bit code of the current period is ‘1’, thus white-
dot markers are added to this period. Let us assume that the 1-bit code
of the i − th fringe period is 𝑚𝑖 along horizontal direction, and the 1-bit
code of the j − th fringe period is 𝑛𝑗 along vertical direction. The location
coordinates of these markers are given as following:
1 1
(𝑥, 𝑦) = (𝑚𝑖 𝑛𝑗 × 𝑖𝑝𝑥 − 𝑝 , 𝑚 𝑛 × 𝑗 𝑝𝑦 − 𝑝𝑦 ) (11)
2 𝑥 𝑖 𝑗 2
where 1 ≤ 𝑖 ≤ 𝑀, 1 ≤ 𝑗 ≤ 𝑁, and 𝑀, 𝑁 are the total numbers of the
fringe periods along horizontal or vertical directions. A multi-bit
codeword formed by the current fringe period and its several neighbor
periods can be obtained by referring to the distribution of these white-
dot markers, and then the fringe order can be determined by looking up
the position of the codeword in 𝐶𝑆. To this end, we should ensure that
any codeword with a given length should appear only once in the whole
code sequence. If the codeword has a length of 6-bit, there are 26 = 64
different codewords. Therefore, the length of 𝐶𝑆 can be up to 64-bit to
ensure that each fringe period can be identified by a unique 6-bit code-
word. Without loss of generality, the 64-bit 𝐶𝑆 selected in this paper is
‘0110111010101111001011001101001001110001010001100001000
000111111’, among which any 6-bit codeword appears only once.
Fig. 4 illustrates the encoding principle of white-dot markers based on
a part of the 64-bit code sequence. For example, for the periods with
fringe orders 𝑘𝑣 = 1, 4 and 𝑘ℎ = 8, 10, 12, their corresponding codes are
all ‘0’, thus no markers are added to these periods. For the periods with
fringe orders 𝑘𝑣 = 2, 3, 5, 6 and 𝑘ℎ = 7, 9, 11, their corresponding codes
3
Optics and Lasers in Engineering 147 (2021) 106733
Fig. 3. (a) The crossed fringe pattern, and its
(b) Fourier spectra, (c) Horizontal wrapped
phase, (d) Vertical wrapped phase.
are all ‘1’, thus white-dot markers are added to these periods according
to Eq. (11) introduced above.
3.3. Global phase unwrapping
This section will introduce how to perform the phase unwrapping
by using these white-dot markers on the fringe pattern. Fig. 5 shows the
flowchart of the global phase unwrapping, and the detailed steps are
summarized as follows:
Step 1. After capturing the image 𝐼 of the fringe pattern, we firstly
employ the Fourier fringe analysis algorithm to calculate two wrapped
phase maps 𝜙𝑢 and 𝜙𝑣 . Since the u and 𝑣 axes of the fringe pattern are
symmetrical, thus the following only describes the phase unwrapping
along u axis.
Step 2. We directly use the reliability-guided method [36] for local
phase unwrapping, and the continuous phase map Φ′𝑢 can be obtained,
as shown in Fig. 5.
Step 3. Then Φ′𝑢 is used to compute the local fringe order 𝑘′𝑢 as follows:
[ ]
𝑘′𝑢 (𝑢, 𝑣) = 𝑓 𝑙𝑜𝑜𝑟 Φ′ 𝑢 (𝑢, 𝑣)∕(2𝜋) (12)
where 𝑓 𝑙𝑜𝑜𝑟[] returns the truncated integer. As shown in Fig. 5, the
regions of different fringe periods can be separated by referring to the
different values of 𝑘′𝑢 .
Step 4. The median filter is applied to the captured image 𝐼. As shown
in Fig. 5, these white-dot markers are disappeared in the filtered image
𝐼 ′.
Step 5. Subtracting 𝐼 ′ from 𝐼 to get 𝐼 𝐼 ′ . At this time, 𝐼 𝐼 ′ is the image
filtered by the median filter of 𝐼, which is composed of white-dot mark-
ers and stray points. We binarize 𝐼 ′ and 𝐼 𝐼 ′ , then subtract them to get
𝐼 𝐼 𝐼 ′ . Finally, intersect the binarized 𝐼 𝐼 𝐼 ′ with the binarized 𝐼 ′ to get
𝑀(𝑢, 𝑣).
Step 6. To globally unwrap the 𝜙𝑢 , the global fringe order 𝑘𝑢 should be
determined. For this purpose, 𝑀 obtained from Step 5 is used to correct
the 𝑘′𝑢 obtained from Step 3. We firstly define:
𝑀 ′ (𝑢, 𝑣) = 𝑀(𝑢, 𝑣) ∗ 𝑘′𝑢 (𝑢, 𝑣) (13)
Then we can obtain the 1-bit code C𝑖 of the 𝑖−𝑡ℎ fringe period as:
{ [ ]
1 ; ∃ 𝑀 ′ (𝑢, 𝑣) = 𝑖
𝐶𝑖 = [ ′ ] (14)
0 ; ∀ 𝑀 (𝑢, 𝑣) ≠ 𝑖
where 𝑖 = 1, 2, ⋯ , max(𝑘′𝑢 ); ∃ denotes the existential symbol, and ∀ de-
notes the arbitrary symbol. Computing C𝑖 one-by-one, we can obtain
the all codes of 𝐼. Then each six successive codes can form a 6-bit code-
word, and the fringe order 𝑘𝑢 can be obtained by searching the position
of the 6-bit codeword in 𝐶𝑆. As shown in Fig. 4, the position of the 6-
bit codeword ‘101010’ equals 7, thus the fringe order of these periods
should be 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, and 12, respectively.
Step 7. Finally, combining 𝜙𝑢 and 𝑘𝑢 , the absolute phase map Φ𝑢 can
be calculated as:
Φ𝑢 (𝑢, 𝑣) = 𝜙𝑢 (𝑢, 𝑣) − 2𝜋𝑘𝑢 (𝑢, 𝑣) (15)
X. Chen, Y. Chen, X. Song et al.
Fig. 6. The calibration of stereo cameras.
Similarly, 𝜙𝑣 can be unwrapped to obtain the absolute phase map
Φ𝑣 .
3.4. Calibration of stereo cameras
The marked-crossed fringe pattern displayed on an LCD monitor is
served as the phase target. The world coordinate system is built as shown
in Fig. 6. The origin 𝑂𝑤 is located at the top-left point of the LCD; Xw -
axis and Yw -axis are respectively parallel to the two sides of the LCD;
Z-axis is perpendicular to the LCD. The conventional calibration method
only uses the feature points in the overlapping FOV of the stereo cam-
eras, while the calibration method proposed in this paper can use all the
captured feature points. To be specific, the intrinsic parameters of the
left or right cameras are calibrated by all feature points inside the FOV
of each camera, then the extrinsic parameters of stereo cameras can be
calibrated by using 𝑂𝑤 −𝑋𝑤 𝑌𝑤 𝑍𝑤 as intermediary. The calibration pro-
cedures are given as below:
Step 1. Stereo cameras capture the images of the marked-crossed fringe
pattern from several different viewpoints. Two absolute phase maps Φ𝑢
and Φ𝑣 of each pattern image are recovered by the global phase unwrap-
ping process introduced above.
Step 2. Without loss of generality, this paper chooses the pixels with
Φ𝑢 = 2𝜋𝑚 and Φ𝑣 = 2𝜋𝑛 as the feature points. To this end, some candi-
dates can be extracted if they satisfy (|Φ𝑢 − 2𝜋𝑚| < 𝛿) ∩ (|Φ𝑣 − 2𝜋𝑛| < 𝛿),
where 𝛿 is a small threshold. If the pixel among these candidates has the
minimum value of |Φ𝑢 − 2𝜋𝑚| + |Φ𝑣 − 2𝜋𝑛|, that can be regarded as the
rough location of the feature point.
Step 3. The extraction accuracy of feature points is optimized by win-
dowed least square linear fitting algorithm based on the following equa-
tion:
{
𝑢 = 𝑎 1 Φ𝑢 + 𝑏 1 Φ𝑣 + 𝑐 1
(16)
𝑣 = 𝑎 2 Φ𝑢 + 𝑏 2 Φ𝑣 + 𝑐 2
4
Optics and Lasers in Engineering 147 (2021) 106733
Fig. 5. The flowchart of global phase unwrap-
ping.
Fig. 7. Part of the images under a certain angle. (a) Image with marked points;
(b) Image without marked points
where 𝑎1 , 𝑏1 , 𝑐1 , 𝑎2 , 𝑏2 , 𝑐2 are fitting coefficients. Substituting Φ𝑢 =
2𝜋𝑚 and Φ𝑣 = 2𝜋𝑛 into the equation, the sub-pixel positions of feature
points are obtained.
Step 4. Let’s use 𝑑 to represent the pixel pitch of the LCD. The world co-
ordinates of the feature point with known Φ𝑢 and Φ𝑣 can be determined
as:
[ ] [ ]
𝑋 𝑑∗𝑃 Φ𝑢
= ∗ (17)
𝑌 2𝜋 Φ𝑣
where 𝑃 denotes the number of the pixels per fringe period.
Step 5. Once the one-to-one mapping between the image coordinates
and the world coordinates of feature points are established, the intrinsic
and extrinsic parameters of stereo cameras can be calibrated by Zhang’s
method [37].
4. Simulations
4.1. The influence of white-dot markers
Since some white-dot markers are encoded into the crossed fringe
pattern, these markers may affect the Fourier spectra, and then influ-
ence the accuracy of the phase calculation. The pattern illustrated in
Fig. 7 is employed to explore the influence of these markers. The reso-
lution of the pattern is 1360 × 960 pixels. The phase distribution of the
marked-crossed fringe pattern is calculated by the Fourier fringe analy-
sis algorithm, then compared with the theoretical phase distribution. To
verify the universality, we randomly generate 15 patterns with differ-
ent angles by simulation, and the simulated results are shown in Fig. 8.
Obviously, the phase errors are so small thus can be ignored, which con-
firms that the markers have very little influence on the wrapped phase
calculation.
4.2. The calibration of stereo cameras
In this section, some simulations have been performed to verify the
proposed method. The stereo camera system consisting of two identical
cameras placed in parallel. And the intrinsic and extrinsic parameters of
X. Chen, Y. Chen, X. Song et al. Optics and Lasers in Engineering 147 (2021) 106733

Table 1
Average intrinsic parameters of the second simulation.

Camera Parameter Left camera Right camera

[fu l, fv l ] [u0 l , v0 l ] [ k1 l , k2 l ] [fu r , fv r ] [u0 r , v0 r ] [ k1 r , k2 r ]
Simulation 800.5591 480.0528 -0.0001 800.6280 480.0512 0.0001
800.5577 360.0965 0.0002 800.6379 360.0239 -0.0000

Table 2
Average extrinsic results of the second simulation.

Parameter 𝜃x 𝜃y 𝜃z tx ty tz
Simulation 0.0005 0.0021 0.0000 500.0111 0.0636 0.1103

Fig. 8. The maximum and mean phase errors. (a) Maximum value; (b) Mean
value.

Fig. 10. Experiment platform.

errors of main points are less than 0.07%. The errors of rotation angles
are less than 7.7 × 10−3 °, and the errors of translation distances are
less than 0.44 mm. The simulated camera parameters are very close to
the ideal camera parameters. Simulation results show that the method
is effective and feasible.

5. Experiments

To further verify the proposed method, an experiment platform con-

sisting of two cameras (Point Grey Chameleon3) and a tablet (iPad
MW792CH/A) was built up, as shown in Fig. 10. The two cameras have
Fig. 9. Target poses.
a resolution of 1280 × 1024 pixels. The optical lenses (Kowa LM16JCM)
mounted on the cameras have a focal length of 12 mm. The tablet has
the stereo cameras are set as: a resolution of 2160 × 1620 pixels and a pixel pitch of 0.098 mm. The
marked-crossed fringe pattern with 𝑝𝑥 = 𝑝𝑦 = 32 pixels was displayed on
⎡800 0 480⎤
the tablet and served as the calibration target.
𝑲 𝑙 =𝑲 𝑟 = ⎢ 0 800 360⎥ (19)
⎢ ⎥
⎣ 0 0 1 ⎦
5.1. Comparison of different calibration methods
⎡1 0 0⎤ ⎡500⎤
𝑹𝑙𝑟 =⎢0 1 0⎥ , 𝒕𝑙𝑟 = ⎢ 0 ⎥ (20) Two different calibration methods are compared in the first exper-
⎢ ⎥ ⎢ ⎥ iment, in which the settings of the cameras keep constant. Here we
⎣0 0 1⎦ ⎣ 0 ⎦
use the classical chessboard calibration method for comparative exper-
More concretely, the focal lengths are 𝑓𝑢 = 𝑓𝑣 = 800 pixels; the principal iments.
points locates at (𝑢0 , 𝑣0 ) = (480, 360) pixels; the skew factor and distor- The tablet is placed within two camera degrees of freedom to obtain
tion coefficients equal to zero; the rotation angles are 𝜃𝑥 = 𝜃𝑦 = 𝜃𝑧 = 0°; a larger FOV overlap area. Stereo cameras take two targets from 10 dif-
and the translation distances are 𝑡𝑥 = 500 pixels, and 𝑡𝑦 = 𝑡𝑧 = 0 pixels. ferent camera postures to get two sets of calibration data. The pictures
The periods of the fringe pattern are 𝑝𝑥 = 𝑝𝑦 = 80 pixels. Then the stereo of the crossed fringe target are calibrated by the proposed method, in
cameras capture the images from seven different viewpoints, as shown which Fig. 11 shows the absolute phase maps of a certain camera pos-
in Fig. 9. Gaussian noise is added to each image and then calibrated. ture. Meanwhile, the pictures of the checkerboard target are calibrated
The simulation is repeated 15 times, and the mean value of the results by Zhang’s checkerboard calibration method. Table 3 shows the intrin-
are taken as the obtained parameters. Table 1 and Table 2 respectively sic parameters of the two calibration methods, and Table 4 shows the
show the average values of intrinsic and extrinsic parameters after 15 extrinsic parameters. Table 5 shows the re-projection errors of the two
calibrations. The errors of focal lengths are less than 0.12%, and the calibration methods. Obviously, the calibration parameters of the two

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X. Chen, Y. Chen, X. Song et al. Optics and Lasers in Engineering 147 (2021) 106733

Fig. 11. Absolute phase maps of a certain cam-

era posture. (a) - (b) The absolute phase dia-
grams of the left camera; (c) - (d) The absolute
phase diagrams of the right camera.

Table 3
Calibration intrinsic parameters of the first experiment.

Camera Parameter Left camera Right camera

[fu l , fv l ] [u0 l , v0 l ] [ k1 l , k2 l ] [fu r , fv r ] [u0 r , v0 r ] [ k1 r , k2 r ]
marked-crossed 2671.4102 518.8393 -0.1166 2686.6154 506.5403 -0.1206
fringe pattern 2672.5473 643.5421 0.4129 2687.2703 627.3174 0.4469
Chessboard 2663.9657 517.3922 -0.1061 2676.9888 507.8445 -0.1176
2666.1174 639.9517 0.2462 2678.4712 630.9117 0.4082

Table 4
Calibration extrinsic results of the first experiment.

Parameter 𝜃x 𝜃y 𝜃z tx ty tz
marked-crossed fringe pattern 25.1135 0.3795 -0.25715 11.7154 -126.0518 33.2526
Chessboard 25.0355 0.4397 -0.2594 11.7084 -126.1492 32.9289

Table 5
Reprojection errors of the first experiment.

Camera Left camera Right camera

Parameter pixel_err_xl pixel_err_yl pixel_err_xr pixel_err_yr
Marked-crossed fringe pattern 0.0532 0.0728 0.0484 0.0706
Chessboard 0.07553 0.1087 0.0711 0.1046

methods are very similar. Surprisingly the re-projection errors of the
crossed fringe pattern calibration method are smaller than that of the
checkerboard calibration method. The experimental results show that
the proposed method has higher accuracy and better performance than
the chessboard calibration method in the situation of the stereo cameras
with large overlapping FOV.
5.2. Three-dimensional object reconstruction
On the basis of the first experiment, we further verify the accuracy
of the crossed fringe calibration method. We reconstruct a standard ball
with a radius of 12.5mm by the calibration data from the first experi-
ment. We use the least square method to fit the calculated point cloud
data. Fig. 12 shows the reconstructed sphere model obtained by two
different calibration methods. As a result of the crossed fringe calibra-
tion method, the center of reconstruction sphere is (-77.6911, 47.3050,
766.3498), the radius is 12.8549 mm, and the reconstruction error is
2.8392%. As a result of the chessboard calibration method, the center
of reconstruction sphere is (-76.4775, 47.7434, 764.3272), the radius is
12.8795 mm, and the reconstruction error is 3.0360%. Therefore, the
crossed fringe calibration method again verifies that it has higher cal-
ibration accuracy and better performance than the chessboard calibra-
tion method.
5.3. Comparison of calibration results with feature points in different
regions
The crossed fringe calibration method proposed in this paper uses
global coding, and can select any part of the feature points for calibra-
tion. In the third experiment, we adjust the two cameras to pose with
a certain FOV overlap. Each captured image can be divided into two
parts: the areas within and without the overlapping FOV. Fig. 13 is a

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X. Chen, Y. Chen, X. Song et al. Optics and Lasers in Engineering 147 (2021) 106733

Fig. 12. Reconstruction results of the standard

ball. (a) crossed fringe calibration; (b) chess-
board calibration

Fig. 13. The schematic diagrams of different

areas of the target captured by a stereo camera
in a certain shooting posture. (a) and (c) are
schematic diagrams of different areas of the left
and right cameras; (b) and (d) are the feature
points taken by the left and right cameras.

Table 6
Calibration extrinsic results of the third experiment.

Parameter 𝜃x 𝜃y 𝜃z tx ty tz
FOV overlapping 17.2518 0.4927 -0.3438 1.7088 -136.6721 -0.8755
FOV non-overlapping 17.5898 0.3151 -0.3094 1.5987 -136.5243 -0.0669
Full FOV area 17.6929 0.1261 -0.3094 1.6632 -136.5506 -0.4552

schematic diagram of two regions of the target in the shooting attitude regions are similar, the method is ergodic, and any part of the feature
of the stereo cameras. Fig. 13 (b) and (d) are the points captured by the points can be flexibly selected for calibration. Therefore, the method is
left and right cameras, respectively. Since each feature point is coded, it also suitable for the case of non-overlapping FOV area.
can be judged whether it is in the overlapping area of FOV according to
whether the coordinates in the world coordinate system are the same.
5.4. Calibration for non-overlapping FOV cameras
As shown in Fig. 13 (a) and (c), red represents FOV non-overlapping
area, and blue represents FOV overlapping area.
In the fourth experiment, the two cameras are adjusted to a non-
Then the points in the different regions are calibrated respectively.
overlapping field of view. As with the first experimental calibration pro-
Table 6 shows the extrinsic parameters of the different areas after cali-
cess, the stereo camera acquires fringe images from 10 different camera
bration. Experiments show that the extrinsic parameters of the different
positions. The calibration parameters are shown in Table 7 and Table 8.

7
X. Chen, Y. Chen, X. Song et al.
Table 7
Calibration intrinsic parameters of the fourth experiment.
Camera Parameter
[fu l , fv l ]
marked-crossed 2648.5192
fringe pattern 2650.1752
Table 8
Calibration extrinsic results of the fourth experiment.
Parameter 𝜃x
marked-crossed fringe pattern 7.9154
Experimental results show that this method is indeed suitable for non-
overlapping FOV.
6. Conclusion
This paper presents a simple calibration method. Compared with the
chessboard calibration method, the calibration of stereo cameras with
a marked-crossed fringe pattern has higher calibration accuracy. Mean-
while, the global coding method can flexibly select any part of the fea-
ture points for calibration, thereby making the calibration process more
flexible. In the case of non-overlapping FOV, this method can also obtain
camera parameters. Overall, the proposed method will have potential
applications for large-range vision systems.
Credit authorship contribution statement
Xiangcheng Chen: Conceptualization, Methodology, Writing - re-
view & editing. Ying Chen: Writing - original draft, Visualization. Xi-
aokai Song: Investigation, Data curation. Wenyuan Liang: Investiga-
tion, Funding acquisition. Yuwei Wang: Conceptualization, Funding ac-
quisition, Writing - review & editing.
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial
interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence
the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgments
This work was supported by National Natural Science Foundation
of China (NSFC) (51905005,51605130), Natural Science Foundation of
Anhui Province under Grant 2008085QF318, Beijing Natural Science
Foundation under Grant L192039, Open Fund of Key Laboratory of Ic-
ing and Anti-/De-Icing under Grant IADL20190303, National Key R&D
Program of China under Grant 2017YFA0701105.
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