Method for calibration accuracy improvement of projector-camera-based structured light system

Calibration is a critical step for the projector-camera-based structured light system (SLS). Conventional SLS calibration means usually use the calibrated camera to calibrate the projector device, and the optimization of calibration parameters is applied to minimize the two-dimensional (2-D) reprojection errors. A three-dimensional (3-D)-based method is proposed for the optimization of SLS calibration parameters. The system is first calibrated with traditional calibration methods to obtain the primary calibration parameters. Then, a reference plane with some precisely printed markers is used for the optimization of primary calibration results. Three metric error criteria are introduced to evaluate the 3-D reconstruction accuracy of the reference plane. By treating all the system parameters as a global optimization problem and using the primary calibration parameters as initial values, a nonlinear multiobjective optimization problem can be established and solved. Compared with conventional calibration methods that adopt the 2-D reprojection errors for the camera and projector separately, a global optimal calibration result can be obtained by the proposed calibration procedure. Experimental results showed that, with the optimized calibration parameters, measurement accuracy and 3-D reconstruction quality of the system can be greatly improved.