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Novel Technique for Calibrating Multiple Projectors on Fiducial-Free Surfaces

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— 1 min read

A team of scientists at the University of California has developed a novel technique for calibrating multiple projectors on fiducial-free piecewise smooth vertically extruded surfaces using a single camera. This achievement is significant for immersive virtual reality systems, such as cylindrical displays and CAVEs, which are common in this field. The researchers have successfully estimated the display's 3D geometry and camera extrinsic parameters using a nonlinear optimization technique from a single image without any explicit display to camera correspondences. This enables fast recalibration in the face of projector, display, or camera movements and even changes in display shape.

Key Takeaways:

  • The novel technique calibrates multiple projectors on fiducial-free piecewise smooth vertically extruded surfaces using a single camera.
  • The researchers imposed two priors on the display surface: the aspect ratio of the rectangle formed by the four corners of the surface is known, and the boundary is visible and segmentable.
  • The technique estimates the display's 3D geometry and camera extrinsic parameters using a nonlinear optimization technique from a single image.
  • The fast convergence and robustness of the method are achieved via a novel dimension reduction technique for camera parameter estimation and a novel deterministic technique for projector property estimation.
  • This simplicity, efficiency, and robustness of the method enable several coveted features for nonplanar projection-based displays, including fast recalibration and the ability to overlap multiple projectors on the corners of a CAVE.
  • The technique opens up the possibility of easily deploying multiprojector displays on aesthetic novel shapes for edutainment and digital signage applications.
  • The researchers have published their study in IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, a journal published by the IEEE Computer Society.

Statistics:

  • 1209-1222: The page numbers of the article "Autocalibrating Tiled Projectors on Piecewise Smooth Vertically Extruded Surfaces" in IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, 2011.
  • 17(9): The volume and issue number of the article in IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, 2011.
  • 9: The number of projectors calibrating on fiducial-free surfaces using the novel technique.
  • 1: The number of camera used to calibrate the projectors.

Sources:

  • Sajadi, B. et al. (2011) "Autocalibrating Tiled Projectors on Piecewise Smooth Vertically Extruded Surfaces." IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, 17(9), 1209-1222.
  • B. Sajadi, University of California, Dept. of Computational Science, Irvine, CA 92697, United States.
  • IEEE Computer Society, 10662 Los Vaqueros Circle, PO Box 3014, Los Alamitos, CA 90720-1314, USA.

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