Validation of geometric models for fisheye lenses

The paper focuses on the photogrammetric investigation of geometric models for different types of optical fisheye constructions (equidistant, equisolid-angle, sterographic and orthographic projection). These models were implemented and thoroughly tested in a spatial resection and a self-calibrating bundle adjustment. For this purpose, fisheye images were taken with a Nikkor 8 mm fisheye lens on a Kodak DSC 14n Pro digital camera in a hemispherical calibration room. Both, the spatial resection and the bundle adjustment resulted in a standard deviation of unit weight of 1/10 pixel with a suitable set of simultaneous calibration parameters introduced into the camera model. The camera-lens combination was treated with all of the four basic models mentioned above. Using the same set of additional lens distortion parameters, the differences between the models can largely be compensated, delivering almost the same precision parameters. The relative object space precision obtained from the bundle adjustment was ca. 1: 10 000 of the object dimensions. This value can be considered as a very satisfying result, as fisheye images generally have a lower geometric resolution as a consequence of their large field of view and also have a inferior imaging quality in comparison to most central perspective lenses. (C) 2009 International Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing, Inc. (ISPRS). Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.