An-Najah Staff

The Canon EOS 5D Mark II camera is a Single-Lens Reflex (SLR) digital camera with 21.1 million effective pixels and with a capability of recording full 1080 pixels High Definition (HD) video. Using still images acquired from high resolution SLR cameras, it is possible to measure precise three dimensional (3D) coordinates of well defined targets using close-range photogrammetric techniques. However, the use of images extracted from a video for such precision measurement is still challenging. This could be due to several factors and the most critical are the sensor size, the image resolution and lenses. The sensor size plays a very important factor in providing intersection geometry of the targets. The bigger the sensor size the larger the field of view to produce strong geometry. The resolution of the images is very important to provide clear targets for precise and automatic target measurement. A good quality lens often provides stable lens distortion which can be determined through the calibration process and then used for precise measurements. The normal HD video camcorders (for example, Sony HDR-HC1) have a small sensor size (the Sony has a sensor dimensions approximately 7 x 4 mm with a pixel size of 0.0038mm). However, the Canon EOS 5D camera has the capability of recording a HD video using a CMOS sensor with dimensions of 36 x 24 mm and a pixel size of 0.019mm. The aim of this paper is to illustrate the results of using the video images of the Canon EOS 5D for precise measurements. The paper will firstly describe the technique used for camera calibration including for the video. Then, it will discuss and analyse the results of selected sets of images acquired using both video and still mode.