Automatic Multi-Camera Setup Optimization for Optical Tracking

We propose a method to determine the optimal camera alignment for a tracking system with multiple cameras by specifying the volume to be tracked and an initial camera setup. We use optimization strategies based on methods usually employed for solving nonlinear systems of equations. All approaches are fully automatic and take advantage of modern graphics hardware since we also implement a GPU-based, accelerated visibility test. The algorithm automatically optimizes the whole setup by adjusting the given set of camera parameters. We can steer the optimization towards different goals depending on the desired application, e.g. the widest possible volume coverage or maximum camera visibility to overcome heavy occlusion problems during the tracking process. We also consider parameter constraints that the user may specify according to restrictions in the local environment where the cameras have to be mounted. This allows for a convenient definition of higher level constraints for the camera setup.