AUTOMATIC CALIBRATION AND CO-REGISTRATION FOR A STEREO CAMERA SYSTEM AND A THERMAL IMAGING SENSOR USING A CHESSBOARD

Abstract. This paper presents a system calibration method for a trifocal sensor, which is sensitive to different spectral bands. The trifocal camera system consists of a stereo camera, operating in the visual (VIS) spectrum and a thermal imaging camera, operating in the Long-Wave- Infrared (LWIR) spectrum. Intrinsic parameters and spatial alignment are determined simultaneously. As calibration target a passive aluminium chessboard is used. Corner detection and subsequent bundle adjustment is done on all synchronized image triplets. The remaining reprojection errors are in the sub-pixel range and enable the system to generate metric point clouds, colored with thermal intensities in real-time.