Endoscope

Introduction

Our goal for this project was to learn how to appropriately and accurately apply Geometric calibration to an endoscope and also inverse its distortion in real-time.

Initially, we set out to test the various features of the endoscope and become comfortable with the paired user software needed to collect data. Once this was accomplished, our team had to determine the type of distortion found in the system and decide how to go about accounting for its affect on the various collected images. Once this was achieved and our images free of distortion, we would then be able to move on to our next task, algorithm development for two flash depth estimation. Unfortunately, our endoscope seemed to have variable gain on its light source that would change depending on how far it was to its target, so we were unable to fulfill this second part of the project.

Background

Key Terms

Optical Aberration: errors in an image that are caused mostly by imperfect manufacturing and approximations made based on our knowledge and understanding of light. Some of the more common types are Spherical aberration, Coma, Astigmatism, Curvature of Field, Chromatic aberration, and in our case Distortion

Distortion: a commonly used term in modern day photography that refers to any deviation from rectilinear projection. Though distortion comes in a wide range of patterns and irregular forms, the most common types we see are "Barrel Distortion" and "Pincushion distortion" as depicted below.

Pincushion: image magnification increases with the distance from the optical axis
Barrel: image magnification decreases with distance from the optical axis.

Geometric Calibration: determination of the geometric relation of the imaging process of a camera

Method

Hardware

Experiment Setup

Endoscope system

Endoscope capturing images of the displayed calibration target

Captured image displayed onscreen

Procedure

-Setup Endoscope in stationary position
-Capture images of test target in varying orientations and distances with endoscope.
-The image in question should be stationary at each data collection. (30+ images)

Data Collection Example