Background <p>Stereo optical measurement techniques, such as digital image correlation (DIC), are widely used in 3D deformation measurement as non-contact, full-field measurement methods, in which stereo calibration is a crucial step. However, current stereo calibration methods lack intuitive optimal pose guidance, leading to inefficiency and suboptimal accuracy in deformation measurements.</p> Objective <p>The aim of this study is to develop an interactive calibration framework that automatically generates the next optimal pose, enabling high-accuracy stereo calibration for 3D deformation measurement.</p> Methods <p>We propose a pose optimization method that introduces joint optimization of relative and absolute extrinsic parameters, with the minimization of the covariance matrix trace adopted as the loss function to solve for the next optimal pose. Integrated with this method is a user-friendly graphical interface, which guides even non-expert users to capture qualified calibration images.</p> Results <p>Our proposed method demonstrates superior efficiency (requiring fewer images) and accuracy (demonstrating lower measurement errors) compared to random pose, while maintaining robustness across varying FOVs. In the thermal deformation measurement tests (500–700<InlineEquation ID="IEq1"> <EquationSource Format="TEX">\(^{\circ }\)</EquationSource> <EquationSource Format="MATHML"><math> <mmultiscripts> <mrow /> <mrow /> <mo>∘</mo> </mmultiscripts> </math></EquationSource> </InlineEquation>C) on an S-shaped specimen, the results exhibit high agreement with finite element analysis (FEA) simulations in both deformation magnitude and evolutionary trends.</p> Conclusions <p>We present a pose guidance method for high-precision stereo calibration in 3D deformation measurement. The simulation experiments, real-world experiments, and thermal deformation measurement applications all demonstrate the significant application potential of our proposed method in the field of 3D deformation measurement.</p>