Stereo depth estimation under different camera calibration and alignment errors

Depth estimation is a fundamental issue in computational stereo. To obtain accurate stereo depth estimation, all mechanical parameters with a high precision need to be measured in order to achieve sub-pixel accuracy and to match features between two different images. This paper investigates accurate depth estimation with different mechanical parameter errors, such as camera calibration and alignment errors, which mainly result from camera lens distortion, camera translation, rotation, pitch, and yaw. For each source of the errors, a model for the error description is presented, and the accurate depth estimation due to this error is quantitatively analyzed. Depth estimation algorithms under an individual error, and with all the errors, are given. Experimental results show that the proposed models can rectify the errors and calculate the accurate depths effectively. (C) 2011 Optical Society of America