Impact of Camera and System Calibration on Photogrammetric Reconstruction Using Medium Format Digital Camera

Current advances in digital and electronic products have led to the availability of inexpensive and reliable Medium Format Digital Cameras (MFDCs) that can be used in many photogrammetric applications. In this research, the impact of camera and system calibration on object space reconstruction is investigated under different georeferencing scenarios (i.e., indirect georeferencing and integrated sensor orientation). First, camera calibration is conducted using a MFDC (i.e., the Rollei-P65). Based on different camera calibration datasets – such as indoor, in-situ, and camera calibration certificates, the equivalency of the calibration techniques as well as the adequacy of the distortion models are evaluated while considering relative and absolute quantitative measures. Previously developed camera stability analysis technique will be used for testing the adequacy of the utilized distortion model as well as the equivalency of different calibration techniques. Afterwards, system calibration is conducted to estimate the lever-arm and boresight parameters (i.e., mounting parameters) using different calibration datasets. The mounting parameters are estimated through an integrated sensor orientation (i.e., GPS/INS-assisted Aerial Triangulation) using minimum amount of control information. The estimated system calibration parameters are evaluated by investigating both relative and absolute quantitative measures using different camera calibration parameters. The experimental results have shown that the indoor calibration provides reliable estimate of the internal camera characteristics and leads to accurate system calibration and object space reconstruction. * Corresponding author.