A New Calibration Method and its Application for the Cooperation of Wide-Angle and Pan-Tilt-Zoom Cameras

In this study, we present a new calibration method for the cooperation of wide-angle and pan-tilt-zoom (PTZ) cameras. A wide-angle camera enables the surveillance of a large area. However, it may be difficult to perceive the detail of an object. On the other hand, a PTZ camera enables the surveillance of the object detail. However, its view is limited when the camera zooms on a specific object. Therefore, the cooperation can complement the disadvantage of two types of cameras. For an object appears in the image of wide-angle camera, the desired pan and tilt angles of a PTZ camera for focusing on the object can be computed from its image coordinate. Previous methods can be classified into three categories: 3D world coordinate system, scene-dependent, or special technique. They are not simple and instinctive enough. The proposed method is simply based on the 2D image plane of wide-angle camera. A set of calibration points are selected directly on the image. Every point is a pair of pan/tilt angles (p, t) and 2D coordinate (x, y). Then, the calibration parameters are calculated from the set of points. An experiment was designed to evaluate the accuracy of the proposed method at fixed points. The results show that the proposed method is accurate enough for the cooperation of dual cameras. In advance, a prototype system for capturing close-up images of moving objects in an open area was implemented to demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed method.