Given the low efficiency and poor accuracy of the recent calibration method for the Kinect sensor with depth and color camera

we propose an improved algorithm that can quickly and accurately calibrate the color and depth camera of the Kinect sensor based on color and disparity images. The algorithm considers the features of color and depth simultaneously to improve the calibration of the Kinect sensor. The color camera was calibrated using Zhang's method

and the depth camera was calibrated using a Kinect disparity distortion correction model. This model represents the geometric relationship between disparity and depth and uses a spatially varying offset simplified by Taylor's formula that decays as Kinect disparity increases. The Kinect sensor was calibrated using multiple views of the calibration plane to obtain the color and disparity images that would be used to obtain the distortion parameters and the rotation and translation matrix between the two cameras. The spatial distortion parameter by Taylor's formula was streamlined to simplify the distortion correction model of the depth camera and to optimize the solution process. The reprojection error of the color camera was 0.33

whereas that of the depth camera was 0.798; the running tine of our calibration process was 116 s. Experiments show that the proposed algorithm can ensure the accuracy and improve the efficiency of the calibration process.