System requirements

Getting started

• Go to Bouguet's calibration page, and retrieve the latest version of the complete camera calibration toolbox for Matlab.
• Store the individual matlab files (.m files) into a unique folder TOOLBOX_calib (default folder name).
• Run Matlab and add the location of the folder TOOLBOX_calib to the main matlab path. This procedure will let you call any of the matlab toolbox functions from anywhere. Under Windows, this may be easily done by using the path editing menu. Under Unix or Linux, you may use the command path or addpath (use the help command for function description).
• Run the main matlab calibration function calib_gui (or calib).
  A mode selection window appears on the screen:
  
  
  This selection window lets you choose between two modes of operation of the toolbox: standard or memory efficient. In standard mode, all the images used for calibration are loaded into memory once and never read again from disk. This minimizes the overall number of disk access, and speeds up all image processing and image display functions. However, if the images are large, or there are a lot of them, then the OUT OF MEMORY error message may be encountered. If this is the case, the new memory efficient version of the toolbox may be used. In this mode, every image is loaded one by one and never stored permanently in memory.
  If you choose to run the standard version of the toolbox now, you can always switch to the other memory efficient mode later in case the OUT OF MEMORY error message is encountered. The two modes of operation are totally compatible (for input and output) and interchangeable.
  
  Since both modes have the exact same user interface, in the context of this documentation, let us select the standard mode by clicking on the top button of the window. The main calibration toolbox window appears on the screen (replacing the mode selection window):
  
  
  Note that the mode selection step can be bypassed altogether by directly running calib(0) for the normal mode or calib(1) for the memory efficient mode.


• You are now ready to use the toolbox for calibration.

Calibration examples

• First calibration example - Corner extraction, calibration, additional tools

  This section takes you through a complete calibration example based on a total of 20 (and 25) images of a planar checkerboard. This example lets you learn how to use all the features of the toolbox: loading calibration images, extracting image corners, running the main calibration engine, displaying the results, controlling accuracies, adding and suppressing images, undistorting images, exporting calibration data to different formats... This example is highly recommended for someone who is just starting using the toolbox.




• Second calibration example - Calibration using Zhengyou Zhang's data

  This section shows you how to use the main calibration engine on Zhengyou Zhang's data in a scripting mode. After going through that example, you will also know how to change the intrinsic camera model by choosing which parameters to optimize. This example is highly recommended for someone who intends to use the main calibration engine in their own matlab script files.




• Third calibration example - Calibration using Heikkilä's data (planar and non-planar calibration rigs)

  Another calibration example on Heikkilä's data that demonstrates that the main optimization engine also works when the calibration rig is non-planar. Try it, it takes only 30 seconds to run!




• Fourth calibration example - Calibration using Bakstein and Halir's data

  Another similar calibration example that runs the main optimization engine on Bakstein and Halir's data. Try it!




• Fifth calibration example - Calibrating a stereo system, stereo image rectification and 3D stereo triangulation

  This example shows how to use the toolbox for calibrating a stereo system (intrinsically and extrinsically), rectifying stereo images, and performing 3D stereo triangulation. A new stereo toolbox called by stereo_gui is demonstrated.
  
  
  
  

• Sixth calibration example - Combining two independent calibrations of the same camera

  This example gives a quick demonstration of the script merge_two_datasets.m that lets you easily combine two calibration datasets of the same camera created independently.
  

Description of the calibration parameters

Description of the functions in the calibration toolbox

Doing your own calibration

Undocumented features of the toolbox

References

A few links related to camera calibration