A Parameter-free Radial Distortion Correction of Wide Angle Lenses using Distorted Vanishing Points

In this paper, we proposed a new stratified method for correcting the radial distortion of a strong wide-angle lens using a single image. The key idea is to use a 3D concave calibration rig with three planar patterns aligned orthogonally with each other. The parallelism of the line patterns, orthogonality and concavity of the rig enable us to deal with the distortion of the entire image that is obtained even by a strong wide field of view (FOV) lens such as fish-eye lens. First, by identifying vanishing points in the distorted image with curved lines, we can estimate the center of distortion. And then, ideal vanishing points and straight lines are restored, so that the undistorted image is recovered. Since our method is parameter-free and does not rely on any particular radial distortion model, it can be applied to various types of lenses. Experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness and robustness of the proposed method.