Camera calibration with known rotation

Abstract

We address the problem of using external rotation information with uncalibrated video sequences. The main problem addressed is, what is the benefit of the orientation information for camera calibration? It is shown that in case of a rotating camera the camera calibration problem is linear even in the case that all intrinsic parameters vary. For arbitrarily moving cameras the calibration problem is also linear but underdetermined for the general case of varying all intrinsic parameters. However, if certain constraints are applied to the intrinsic parameters the camera calibration can be computed linearly. It is analyzed which constraints are needed for camera calibration of freely moving cameras. Furthermore we address the problem of aligning the camera data with the rotation sensor data in time. We give an approach to align these data in case of a rotating camera.