A Generalized Non-Linear Method for Distortion Correction and Top-Down View Conversion of Fish Eye Images

Abstract

Advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) have been developed to automate and modify vehicles for safety and better driving experience. Among all computer vision modules in ADAS, 360-degree surround view generation of immediate surroundings of the vehicle is very important, due to application in on-road traffic assistance, parking assistance etc. This paper presents a novel algorithm for fast and computationally efficient transformation of input fisheye images into required top down view. This paper also presents a generalized framework for generating top down view of images captured by cameras with fish-eye lenses mounted on vehicles, irrespective of pitch or tilt angle. The proposed approach comprises of two major steps, viz. correcting the fish-eye lens images to rectilinear images, and generating top-view perspective of the corrected images. The images captured by the fish-eye lens possess barrel distortion, for which a nonlinear and non-iterative method is used. Thereafter, homography is used to obtain top-down view of corrected images. This paper also targets to develop surroundings of the vehicle for wider distortion less field of view and camera perspective independent top down view, with minimum computation cost which is essential due to limited computation power on vehicles.

Image Analysis & Stereology: 2017 Research Highlights

“…One of the increasingly popular ADAS is the surround view system (SVS), or omniview technology, which is a solution based on computer vision that generates a 360 • view of the vehicle surroundings through mounted cameras and image processing algorithms. As an element of SVS, Bawa et al (2017) proposed a novel algorithm for fast and computationally efficient transformation of input images captured by four Table 1. An overview of the contributions to volume 36 (2017) of Image Analysis & Stereology according to the field of study, listed in alphabetical order (asterisks indicate the contributions to the special topic entitled "The History of Stereology", published in issue 3).…”