# Simplified Cross-Modal Calibration for Heterogeneous Event-RGB Stereo Systems

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2608.22965 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.22965/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 13 of its 31 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 24 Aug 2026.

## Builds on (most cited first, 13 of 13)

- [Event-based Vision: A Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1904.08405/) (2019)
- [High Speed and High Dynamic Range Video with an Event Camera](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1906.07165/) (2019)
- [How to Calibrate Your Event Camera](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2105.12362/) (2021)
- [Dynamic Event Camera Calibration](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2107.06749/) (2021)
- [TUMTraf Event: Calibration and Fusion Resulting in a Dataset for Roadside Event-Based and RGB Cameras](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.08474/) (2024)
- [RGB-D-E: Event Camera Calibration for Fast 6-DOF Object Tracking](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2006.05011/) (2020)
- [E-Calib: A Fast, Robust and Accurate Calibration Toolbox for Event Cameras](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.09078/) (2023)
- [MULi-Ev: Maintaining Unperturbed LiDAR-Event Calibration](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.18021/) (2024)
- [eWand: A calibration framework for wide baseline frame-based and event-based camera systems](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2309.12685/) (2023)
- [EF-Calib: Spatiotemporal Calibration of Event- and Frame-Based Cameras Using Continuous-Time Trajectories](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.17278/) (2024)
- [SEBVS: Synthetic Event-based Visual Servoing for Robot Navigation and Manipulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.17643/) (2025)
- [eKalibr: Dynamic Intrinsic Calibration for Event Cameras From First Principles of Events](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2501.05688/) (2025)
- [One target to align them all: LiDAR, RGB and event cameras extrinsic calibration for Autonomous Driving](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2511.12291/) (2025)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Accurate extrinsic calibration between event-based and frame-based cameras remains a practical bottleneck for heterogeneous stereo systems. Existing approaches often require sensor or target motion, precise synchronization, or computationally expensive event-to-image reconstruction. We propose a simple, motion-free cross-modal calibration framework that uses a temporally modulated, blended ChArUco target presented on standard consumer displays. By alternating between the original pattern and a partially blended version, the target reliably triggers events while remaining continuously observable to a frame-based camera, avoiding blank frames and reducing synchronization constraints to a coarse, trigger-based alignment. We discretize events into frames coarsely aligned with the RGB images, apply lightweight denoising, and perform ChArUco-based intrinsic and stereo extrinsic calibration. Extensive experiments assess robustness to blending opacity, display brightness, external illumination, viewing angle, and handheld acquisition. Compared to the strongest motion-based reference (E2Calib + Kalibr) and a non-motion-based reference (Plasberg et al.), our approach reduces the mean reprojection error by 44% and 6%, respectively, while substantially simplifying the calibration procedure. Finally, we demonstrate practical utility in a robotic eye-to-hand calibration case study, showing consistent transformations and stable downstream geometric measurements even under partial occlusions. Code is publicly available at https://github.com/nhessenthaler/simple-evrgb-cal.
