Relevance of Accurately Determining the Center of Radial Distortion in 3-D Reconstruction

It is commonly accepted that there is no significant gain in computing precisely the center of radial distortion (CoD). Indeed, practitioners take the center of the image (CI) and the principal point (PP) as proxies for camera lens distortion correction. This article assesses the relevance of accurately measuring the CoD to obtain reliable 3-D reconstructions from multiple views. We found the reconstruction error arising when displacing the CoD from its correct location with a simulation. Then, we study the cases when the PP and the CoD are considered the same or different parameters. Using real images of a chessboard-like pattern, we observe that, for a high distortion lens, the reconstruction error significantly increases when using the CI as a replacement to the CoD, especially at the corners of an image. Although the error lessens for a low distortion lens, it is still significant.