COMPARATIVE GEOMETRIC AND RADIOMETRIC EVALUATION OF MOBILE PHONE AND STILL VIDEO CAMERAS

This paper examines the potential of mobile phones to be used as front-end sensors for photogrammetric procedures and applications. For this purpose, two mobile phone cameras (Sony Ericsson K750i and Nokia N93) were calibrated over an indoor 3D testfield, using a self-calibrating bundle adjustment. Geometric accuracy tests were carried out in order to evaluate their metric performances and to compare the results with respect to two off-the-shelf digital still video cameras (Sony DSC W100 and Sony DSC F828). The geometric accuracy evaluation comprised an absolute accuracy test, JPEG test and temporal stability test. The radiometric capabilities of all cameras (except that the DSC W100 was replaced with a DSC T100 camera) were also evaluated and compared by carrying out modulation transfer function (MTF) analysis, image noise analysis and an operating range test. Substantial systematic errors were diagnosed in some systems. However, with proper calibration it is believed that these devices can be used for many photogrammetric tasks.