In consideration of the effect of lens distortion on the measuring accuracy of a camera, a lens distortion calibration method based on two view geometry of a translation motion was presented in this paper. The main types of lens distortion affecting the measurement accuracy were analyzed, and a nonlinear distortion model was established. Then, four group equations were established for solving distortion parameters by using the inherent characteristics of projective and two view geometries. Finally, to solve the problem that the small pattern can not effectively be full of the field of view (FOV) in a large range measurement, a calibration processing of distortion parameters by acquiring multi-groups' translation motion images in sub-regional FOV was put forward, by which the calibration of the distortion parameters was implemented in a large FOV by the small pattern. The feasibility of the calibration method was verified by a library, and the results show that the calibration precision of proposed method is higher and the straightness error has reduced by 89%. The calibration accuracy and reliability of this method meet the requirements of visual measurement.