Low-Cost Independent Orientation Measurement for Fixed Position Infrared Camera

The use of photogrammetry and computer vision to determine the position of objects in a camera's field of view requires knowledge of the camera's position and orientation. Many techniques to obtain camera orientation currently exist, but they rely on several points in the cameras field of view. A study was performed to investigate if a low-cost external measurement device such as a digital level could be used to make sufficiently accurate measurements of the camera's roll orientation. It required the inclusion of an adapter plate to fit the level securely onto the camera's exterior surface. Several experiments were conducted to determine the accuracy required for the roll angle measurement with this setup. By measuring the roll angle with a standard deviation (SD) of 0.012 to 0.020 deg, it was discovered that the affordable digital level was as accurate as (if not better than) expensive computational algorithms that measured roll angle with a SD of 0.034 deg.