Building an accurate range finder with off the shelf components

Abstract
We present an active triangulation range finding system com- posed of an independant laser system generating a plane of light projected on an object placed upon a rotary table driven by a personal computer. This computer includes a video digitizer board connected to a camera looking at the scene. Besides its low cost, this system has other advantages over the comparable existing systems. First, we have designed a simple, fast and accu- rate calibration procedure which does not require any knowledge about the camera parameters or the relative position of the cam- era with the laser plane. Furthermore, this calibration procedure is performed only once, authorizing stable and accurate results. The result of the scanning of a given object is given in cylindrical coordinates, that is the range image R(0, h) where 0 is the angle of rotation of the rotary table and h the height along its axis of rotation. Choosing different viewpoints, Cartesian range images 2 = j(X,Y) of the same object are computed in order to show, with shaded and perspective views of the scanned object, the quality of the results.

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