Extrinsic Calibration of High Resolution LiDAR and Camera Based on Vanishing Points

Parallel lines, common geometric elements in daily environments, can form vanishing points in projective geometry. In this article, we introduce a novel method for the extrinsic calibration of high-resolution light detection and ranging (LiDAR) and cameras based on vanishing points. This method incorporates two main innovations: 1) the vanishing point is introduced into the extrinsic parameter calibration of camera and LiDAR and 2) it features a simple and intuitive mathematical model compared to the existing target-less extrinsic parameter calibration methods. These advantages confer three key characteristics on the method: 1) it eliminates the need for a specific calibration target, making it applicable to most scenes; 2) owing to its exclusion of an optimization process for fitting optimal matches for calibration, it avoids convergence and consistency considerations and exhibits rapid computational speed; and 3) the algorithm has theoretical applicability between any high-resolution visual sensors. Simulation and actual experiments conducted across diverse settings demonstrate that the method is reliable and accurate. The code has been open-sourced for learning and usage at https://github.com/ColeZhao/livox_camera_vanishing.