In this paper, two methods, the Individual Calibration Method (ICM) and the Simultaneous Calibration Method (SCM), are used to calibrate a vision system with two cameras. The first approach calibrates a camera individually. For the second approach, two or more sets of camera intrinsic and extrinsic parameters are determined simultaneously such that the position errors for the 3‐D points are minimized. We show, theoretically and experimentally, the following results: (a) the offsets of the image centers do not affect significantly the position and orientation of a coordinate frame with respect to a stereo vision system with two cameras; (b) the lens distortion will not change dramatically the position and orientation of a coordinate frame with respect to a stereo vision system. We also find that (a) there is a difference in the determination of an object's location for the simultaneous and individual calibration methods; (b) the approach of calibrating two cameras simultaneously has the advantage of better accuracy over the method of individual calibration.