Structured-light, triangulation-based three-dimensional digitizer
US6549288B1 · kind B1 · utility
Assignee
Inventors
Key dates
| Filing date | May 14, 1999 |
| Grant date | Apr 15, 2003 |
| Priority date | — |
| Expiry date | May 14, 2019 |
Classification
- Technology area (CPC G)Physics
- CPC primaryG06T7/521
- WIPO fieldMeasurement
- WIPO sectorInstruments
Abstract
The present invention provides a system for illuminating an object with a special kind of structured light pattern, recording the shape of the reflected points of light by means of a camera, and, by a triangulation technique that does not depend on the fixed direction of the light source relative to the camera, reconstructing the 3D shape of the object through a computer using the data points collected from the reflection of the structured light pattern. The scanning system is portable and does not require data processing contemporaneous with the data collection. The portable system stores in the storage media several images of the objects with different illumination patterns. The data is subsequently processed, by a computer system which applies data processing routines, i.e., the model building algorithms which provide 3D surface generation. The data acquisition according to the present invention is simplified to acquiring of only two or, optionally, four images of the object, thereby significantly increasing the digitization speed over that of laser-based scanners. The light source projects both structured light and uniform illumination light from the same apparent source, and t…
Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.