Abstract

We present an approach for camera calibration from the im- age of at least two circles arranged in a coaxial way. Such a geometric configuration arises in static scenes of ob jects with rotational symme- try or in scenes including generic ob jects undergoing rotational motion around a flxed axis. The approach is based on the automatic localization of a surface of revolution (SOR) in the image, and its use as a cali- bration artifact. The SOR can either be a real ob ject in a static scene, or a “virtual surface” obtained by frame superposition in a rotational sequence. This provides a unified framework for calibration from single images of SORs or from turntable sequences. Both the internal and ex- ternal calibration parameters (square pixels model) are obtained from two or more imaged cross sections of the SOR, whose apparent contour is also exploited to obtain a better calibration accuracy. Experimental re- sults show that this calibration approach is accurate enough for several vision applications, encompassing 3D realistic model acquisition from single images, and desktop 3D ob ject scanning.