Optimization of Temperature, Targets, and Illumination for High Precision Photogrammetric Measurements

The cameras of a close-range photogrammetry system must be calibrated to find their positions and optical properties. This is a crucial step in ensuring the performance of the complete system, especially if micrometric precision over a large field of view and long-term reproducibility is required. The target positions within the images for camera calibration and measurements are perturbed if stability between images is not achieved. This paper aims to evaluate the optimal conditions to guarantee the stability of the target images during measurements and calibration. The effect of temperature on the target positions is estimated to be about 0.1 pixels during a camera warm-up period of 20 min or more. This effect is reduced to about 0.02 pixels after a warm-up period of less than 10 min by developing a controller for the camera's pixel clock. Additionally, an approximately 22% variation of illumination intensity is found to cause a small, but clearly measurable effect between images. Other aspects studied here are the illumination angle and the target characteristics. A 180° movement of the illumination source with respect to the camera produces a 0.3 pixel change in the target locations when masked retroreflective targets are involved. In contrast, this effect is diminished by a factor of about ten with the use of larger, opaque targets.