Calibration within NI Vision Applications

Updated Apr 3, 2025

Environment

Hardware

  • Frame Grabber Device
  • Smart Camera
  • Basler racer
  • Basler scout

Software

  • Vision Development Module
  • LabVIEW

This article explains what image calibration is, why it is important and how to include in LabVIEW applications.

Images acquired using machine vision cameras could appear distorted owing to perspective errors and lens aberrations. This distortion misplaces information in an image, but it does not necessarily destroy the information in the image. In such cases, you need to calibrate your imaging system to compensate for perspective errors or nonlinear lens distortion. More information about the types of calibration can be found in the related links section.
LabVIEW has in-built VIs in the Vision Development Module for performing calibration functions. These VIs can be found in the following palette Vision and Motion > Vision Utilities > Calibration. Also, note that these VIs are IMAQ VIs which means these will work with:

  • NI Camera Link Frame Grabbers
  • NI Parallel Digital Frame Grabbers
  • NI Analog Frame Grabbers
  • NI 17xx Smart Cameras

Please reference NI Vision Driver and Vision Acquisition Device Compatibility to learn more about the differences among these.