https://doi.org/10.1140/epjst/e2015-50102-3
Regular Article
Error control in the set-up of stereo camera systems for 3d animal tracking
1 Istituto Sistemi Complessi, Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, UOS Sapienza, 00185 Rome, Italy
2 Dipartimento di Fisica, Università Sapienza, 00185 Rome, Italy
3 Dipartimento di Informatica, Università Sapienza, 00198 Rome, Italy
a e-mail: stefania.melillo79@gmail.com
Received: 18 May 2015
Revised: 2 November 2015
Published online: 15 December 2015
Three-dimensional tracking of animal systems is the key to the comprehension of collective behavior. Experimental data collected via a stereo camera system allow the reconstruction of the 3d trajectories of each individual in the group. Trajectories can then be used to compute some quantities of interest to better understand collective motion, such as velocities, distances between individuals and correlation functions. The reliability of the retrieved trajectories is strictly related to the accuracy of the 3d reconstruction. In this paper, we perform a careful analysis of the most significant errors affecting 3d reconstruction, showing how the accuracy depends on the camera system set-up and on the precision of the calibration parameters.
© EDP Sciences, Springer-Verlag, 2015
