Novel calibration method for camera array in spherical arrangement

A camera array placed in a spherical arrangement facilitates a new paradigm for future interactive visual applications, and the calibration of the cameras is a crucial task for such implementation. It is difficult to apply previous calibration methods to this special camera system because opposite features can commonly be found among the opposing cameras used in this system. In this case, a part-by-part calibration may fail in terms of error accumulation. In this paper, we propose an opposite feature based camera calibration method for a camera array in a spherical arrangement. An adaptive scheme is designed on a cube with opposite colour patterns and optimisations in handling the above problem of opposite features being invisible to cameras at opposite positions, based upon which, with our method, a common visible feature point is not required in advance. By applying a practical camera array in a spherical arrangement, and using 3D modelling, the superiority of the proposed method was verified through computer simulations. The results demonstrate that the proposed calibration method can contribute to the imaging system and future visual applications.