Analysis of Effect on Camera Distortion for Measuring Velocity Using Surface Image Velocimeter

Abstract

A surface image velocimeter (SIV) measures the velocity of a particle group by calculating the intensity distribution of the particle group in two consecutive images of the water surface using a cross-correlation method. Therefore, to increase the accuracy of the flow velocity calculated by a SIV, it is important to accurately calculate the displacement of the particle group in the images. In other words, the change in the physical distance of the particle group in the two images to be analyzed must be accurately calculated. In the image of an actual river taken using a camera, camera lens distortion inevitably occurs, which affects the displacement calculation in the image. In this study, we analyzed the effect of camera lens distortion on the displacement calculation using a dense and uniformly spaced grid board. The results showed that the camera lens distortion gradually increased in the radial direction from the center of the image. The displacement calculation error reached 8.10% at the outer edge of the image and was within 5% at the center of the image. In the future, camera lens distortion correction can be applied to improve the accuracy of river surface flow rate measurements.