Noise characteristics of 3D time-of-flight cameras

TL;DR

This paper investigates the noise characteristics of 3D time-of-flight cameras, presenting experimental results and a noise model that explains how various noise sources affect distance measurement accuracy.

Contribution

It introduces a noise model for TOF cameras that accounts for shot noise and dark current noise, explaining observed distance errors based on image intensity and true distance.

Findings

The noise model accurately predicts distance errors in TOF cameras.

Shot noise and dark current noise significantly influence measurement accuracy.

Experimental data supports the proposed noise model.

Abstract

Time-of-flight (TOF) cameras are based on a new technology that delivers distance maps by the use of a modulated light source. In this paper we first describe a set of experiments that we performed with TOF cameras. We then propose a noise model which is able to explain some of the phenomena observed in the experiments. The model is based on assuming a noise source that is correlated with the light source (shot noise) and an additional additive noise source (dark current noise). The model predicts well the dependency of the distance errors on the image intensity and the true distance at an individual pixel.