Acquiring multi-scale images by pan-tilt-zoom control and automatic multi-camera calibration

This paper describes a system for automatically acquiring high-resolution images by steering a pan-tilt-zoom camera at targets detected in a fixed camera view. The system uses a novel method to automatically calibrate between multiple cameras, estimating the homography between the cameras in a home position, together with the effects of pan and tilt controls and the expected height of a person in the image. These calibrations are chained together to steer a slave camera. In addition we describe a simple manual calibration scheme.