The Influence of Autofocus Lenses in the Camera Calibration Process

Camera calibration is a crucial step in robotics and computer vision. Accurate camera parameters are necessary to achieve robust applications. Nowadays, camera calibration process consists of adjusting a set of data to a pin-hole model, assuming that with a reprojection error close to cero, camera parameters are correct. Since all camera parameters are unknown, computed results are considered true. However, the pin-hole model does not represent the camera behavior accurately if the focus is considered. Real cameras change the focal length slightly to obtain sharp objects in the image and this feature skews the calibration result if a unique pin-hole model is computed with a constant focal length. In this paper, a deep analysis of the camera calibration process is done to detect and strengthen its weaknesses. The camera is mounted in a robot arm to known extrinsic camera parameters with accuracy and to be able to compare computed results with the true ones. Based on the bias that exist between computed results and the true ones, a modification of the widely accepted camera calibration method using images of a planar template is presented. A pin-hole model with distance dependent focal length is proposed to improve the calibration process substantially