computer vision - How to correctly calibrate my camera with a wide angle lens using openCV?

Question

I am trying to calibrate a camera with a fisheye lens. I therefor used the fisheye lens module, but keep getting strange results no matter what distortion parameters I fix. This is the input image I use: https://i.stack.imgur.com/x7LH9.jpg

where the red circles indicate the corners I use to calibrate my camera.

This is the best I could get, output: https://i.stack.imgur.com/vMgh4.jpg

I currently don't know by heart what the camera sensor dimensions are, but based on the focal length in pixels that is being calculated in my nitrinsic matrix, I deduce my sensor size is approximately 3.3mm (assuming my physical focal length is 1.8mm), which seems realistic to me. Yet, when undistorting my input image I get nonsense. Could someone tell me what I may be doing incorrectly?

the matrices and rms being output by the calibration:

K:[263.7291703200009, 0, 395.1618975493187;
 0, 144.3800397321767, 188.9308218101271;
 0, 0, 1]

D:[0, 0, 0, 0]

rms: 9.27628

my code:

#include <opencv2/opencv.hpp>
#include "opencv2/core.hpp"
#include "opencv2/imgcodecs.hpp"
#include "opencv2/imgproc.hpp"
#include "opencv2/highgui.hpp"
#include "opencv2/ccalib/omnidir.hpp"

using namespace std;
using namespace cv;

vector<vector<Point2d> > points2D;
vector<vector<Point3d> > objectPoints;

Mat src;

//so that I don't have to select them manually every time
void initializePoints2D()
{
    points2D[0].push_back(Point2d(234, 128));
    points2D[0].push_back(Point2d(300, 124));
    points2D[0].push_back(Point2d(381, 126));
    points2D[0].push_back(Point2d(460, 127));
    points2D[0].push_back(Point2d(529, 137));
    points2D[0].push_back(Point2d(207, 147));
    points2D[0].push_back(Point2d(280, 147));
    points2D[0].push_back(Point2d(379, 146));
    points2D[0].push_back(Point2d(478, 153));
    points2D[0].push_back(Point2d(551, 165));
    points2D[0].push_back(Point2d(175, 180));
    points2D[0].push_back(Point2d(254, 182));
    points2D[0].push_back(Point2d(377, 185));
    points2D[0].push_back(Point2d(502, 191));
    points2D[0].push_back(Point2d(586, 191));
    points2D[0].push_back(Point2d(136, 223));
    points2D[0].push_back(Point2d(216, 239));
    points2D[0].push_back(Point2d(373, 253));
    points2D[0].push_back(Point2d(534, 248));
    points2D[0].push_back(Point2d(624, 239));
    points2D[0].push_back(Point2d(97, 281));
    points2D[0].push_back(Point2d(175, 322));
    points2D[0].push_back(Point2d(370, 371));
    points2D[0].push_back(Point2d(578, 339));
    points2D[0].push_back(Point2d(662, 298));


    for(int j=0; j<25;j++)
    {   
        circle(src, points2D[0].at(j), 5, Scalar(0, 0, 255), 1, 8, 0);
    }

    imshow("src with circles", src);
    waitKey(0);
}

int main(int argc, char** argv)
{
    Mat srcSaved;

    src = imread("images/frontCar.png");
    resize(src, src, Size(), 0.5, 0.5);
    src.copyTo(srcSaved);

    vector<Point3d> objectPointsRow;
    vector<Point2d> points2DRow;
    objectPoints.push_back(objectPointsRow);
    points2D.push_back(points2DRow);

    for(int i=0; i<5;i++)
    {

        for(int j=0; j<5;j++)
        {
            objectPoints[0].push_back(Point3d(5*j,5*i,1));        
        }
    }

    initializePoints2D();
    cv::Matx33d K;
    cv::Vec4d D;
    std::vector<cv::Vec3d> rvec;
    std::vector<cv::Vec3d> tvec;


    int flag = 0;
    flag |= cv::fisheye::CALIB_RECOMPUTE_EXTRINSIC;
    flag |= cv::fisheye::CALIB_CHECK_COND;
    flag |= cv::fisheye::CALIB_FIX_SKEW; 
    flag |= cv::fisheye::CALIB_FIX_K1; 
    flag |= cv::fisheye::CALIB_FIX_K2; 
    flag |= cv::fisheye::CALIB_FIX_K3; 
    flag |= cv::fisheye::CALIB_FIX_K4; 


    double rms =cv::fisheye::calibrate(
 objectPoints, points2D, src.size(), 
 K, D, rvec, tvec, flag, cv::TermCriteria(3, 20, 1e-6)     
 );

    Mat output;
    cerr<<"K:"<<K<<endl;
    cerr<<"D:"<<D<<endl;
    cv::fisheye::undistortImage(srcSaved, output, K, D);
    cerr<<"rms: "<<rms<<endl;
    imshow("output", output);
    waitKey(0);

    cerr<<"image .size: "<<srcSaved.size()<<endl;

}

If anybody has an idea, feel free to either share some code in Python either in C++. Whatever floats your boat.

EDIT:

As you may have notice I don't use a black and white checkerboard for the calibration, but corners from tiles constituting my carpet. At the end of the day the goal -I think- is to get corner coordinates which represent samples from the distortion radii . The carpet is to some extent the same as the checkerboard, the only difference -once again I think- is the fact that you have less high frequency edges at those eg corners on the carpet than on a black and white checkerboard.

I know the number of pictures is very limited, ie only 1. I expect the image to be undistorted to some extent, but I also expect the undistortion to be very well done. But in this case the image output looks like total nonsense. Thanks

Answer 1

If you haven't followed this tutorial on camera calibration with OpenCV, do it. It's well explained and the code is pretty much ready to go. And if your goal is to calibrate your camera using the carpet, maybe check first if it works with the checkerboard.

Also a few things:

• some factors in the K matrix are relative to the size of the pictures you use, check if they're the exact same.
• the reference points you used with your carpet also seems wrong to me: 3 squares along X axis but only 2 along Y axis.
• and as you've stated, the number of pictures is very limited, I recommend you using at least 5 pictures. Quoting the tutorial on camera calibration from the OpenCV doc:

... in practice we have a good amount of noise present in our input images, so for good results you will probably need at least 10 good snapshots of the input pattern in different positions.

If you could use the code from the tutorial and tell me what goes wrong I could help you then. If you could also post a link with the actual image you use (not a screenshot) so that I can test your code.

PS: Too bad for you I had the exact C++ function that did what you want but it looks like I somehow lost it.