Better optical triangulation through spacetime analysis
Brian Curless and Marc Levoy
Proc. ICCV '95.
Abstract
Optical triangulation range scanners are finding wide usage in
industrial inspection, metrology, medicine, and computer graphics.
The standard methods for extracting range data from structured light
reflecting off of an object are accurate only for planar surfaces of
uniform reflectance illuminated by an incoherent source. Using these
methods, curved surfaces, discontinuous surfaces, and surfaces of
varying reflectance cause systematic distortions of the range data.
Coherent light sources such as lasers introduce speckle artifacts that
further degrade the data. We present a new ranging method based on
analyzing the time evolution of the structured light reflections.
Using our spacetime analysis, we can correct for each of these
artifacts, thereby attaining significantly higher accuracy using
existing technology. We present results that demonstrate the validity
of our method using a commercial laser stripe triangulation scanner.
Additional information
Versions of the paper:
Figures:
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Figure 8 From geometry to spacetime image to range data. (TIFF) (45KB)
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Figure 10 Reflectance card. (TIFF) (39KB)
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Figure 12 Depth discontinuities and edge curl. (TIFF) (70KB)
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Figure 13 Shape ribbon. (TIFF) (55KB)
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Figure 14 Model tractor. (JPEG) (112KB)
Demos:
- Renderings of a 2.4-million polygon model of a
happy buddha,
constructed from range images using a volumetric method
and this spacetime analysis.
Last update: 25 January 1995