Acquiring precise range information from camera motion

A method is proposed for obtaining precise range information by swivelling a conventional TV camera, and the experimental verification of the method is described. To realize the method, the blurring that occurs in the image as a result of aberrations of the TV camera lens is used. The direction to the object is measured with a subpixel-level precision which depends on the angular resolution of the camera controller. The uncertainties of the object locations measured by conventional stereo methods depend on the resolution of the image sensor. It is shown that the method can be used to locate objects with a precision depending on the angular resolution of the camera controller, which is 0 to 20 times better than the conventional imaging method