ToF/RGB sensor fusion for augmented 3D endoscopy using a fully automatic calibration scheme

Abstract

Three-dimensional Endoscopy is an evolving field of research and offers great benefits for minimally invasive procedures. Besides the pure topology, color texture is an inevitable feature to provide an optimal visualization. Therefore, in this paper, we propose a sensor fusion of a Time-of-Flight (ToF) and an RGB sensor. This requires an intrinsic and extrinsic calibration of both cameras. In particular, the low resolution of the ToF camera (64×50 px) and inhomogeneous illumination precludes the use of standard calibration techniques. By enhancing the image data the use of self-encoded markers for automatic checkerboard detection, a re-projection error of less than 0.23 px for the ToF camera was achieved. The relative transformation of both sensors for data fusion was calculated in an automatic manner. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2012.