A Parallel Binocular System for 3D Pose Measurement by a Single PTZ Camera

A novel universal parallel binocular (UPB) system by precision linear moving a single PTZ (pan-tilt-zoom) camera is presented here to achieve the accurate pose (position and attitude) measurement in computer vision applications. Unlike traditional parallel binocular system, the optical axes of UPB is not necessarily always perpendicular to its baseline so that it can measure the 3D pose of the object in a wider view. The main sources of error in 3D measurement process using the UPB system are firstly analyzed. The online calibration of intrinsic parameters including the radial lens distortion coefficient of the PTZ camera without any calibration target are then introduced. Moreover, for carrying out the robust PTZ camera online calibration and accurate 3D pose measurement with classic eight-point algorithm, we develop an improved descriptor named as CSCD-SURF(Circular Coordinate Combining Shape-Color Descriptor Under Distortion Based SURF) to extract matching points. Experimental results have been enclosed to show the effectiveness and accuracies of the proposed UPB system.