Does distance from camera to calibration pattern affect calibration parameters?

Question

I'm trying to use to stereo camera measure distance from cameras to a dynamic object(a moving car for example). I used a checkerboard pattern with 7 by 8 squares with square size of 89 millimeters(~ 3.5 inches). distance from camera to pattern was 212 centimeters (~ 83.5 inches). I'm using Python and OpenCV

My questions are:

1. that does the distance from pattern to camera affect much at the calibration parameters? It is stated in One of Matlab examples that distance from camera to pattern in calibration process should be the same as object distance that it is desired to measure1.

2. Should I use bigger board size and increase the camera to pattern distance to get more accurate results for my application?

Answer 1

I think that the specific distance you use for the calibration shouldn't really matter. What does matter is, that you take as many possible different images of your checkerboard as possible. At least 15. Checkerboard should be moved so that you cover the whole camera field. Checkerboard should be also imaged at different out of plane orientations. Having a checkerboard with more squares should also be beneficial as this means more corner points per image. Size of the squares shouldn't make a difference.

On the other hand, camera calibration should be performed with fixed focus which also shouldn't change after the calibration. So, in practice, I guess that this forces you to perform calibration at similar distance that will be used later for the experiment.