Distributed metric calibration of ad hoc camera networks

We discuss how to automatically obtain the metric calibration of an ad hoc network of cameras with no centralized processor. We model the set of uncalibrated cameras as nodes in a communication network, and propose a distributed algorithm in which each camera performs a local, robust bundle adjustment over the camera parameters and scene points of its neighbors in an overlay “vision graph.” We analyze the performance of the algorithm on both simulated and real data, and show that the distributed algorithm results in a fairer allocation of messages per node while achieving comparable calibration accuracy to centralized bundle adjustment.