OpenCV 4 with Python Blueprints - Second Edition

Estimating the intrinsic camera parameters

In OpenCV, camera calibration is fairly straightforward. The official documentation provides a good overview of the topic and some sample C++ scripts at http://docs.opencv.org/doc/tutorials/calib3d/camera_calibration/camera_calibration.html.

For educational purposes, we will develop our own calibration script in Python. We will need to present a special pattern image, with known geometry (chessboard plate or black circles on a white background), to the camera we wish to calibrate.

Because we know the geometry of the pattern image, we can use feature detection to study the properties of the internal camera matrix. For example, if the camera suffers from undesired radial distortion, the different corners ...