Distributed Metric Calibration of Large Camera Networks

Motivated by applications in surveillance sensor networks, we present a distributed algorithm for the automatic, external, metric calibration of a network of cameras with no centralized processor. We model the set of uncalibrated cameras as nodes in a communication network, and propose a distributed algorithm in which each camera only communicates with other cameras that image some of the same scene points. Each node independently forms a neighborhood cluster on which the local calibration takes place, and calibrated nodes and scene points are incrementally merged into a common coordinate frame. The accurate performance of the algorithm is illustrated using examples that model real-world sensor networking situations.