Single-shot 3D sensing with improved data density

TL;DR

This paper presents a new multi-line triangulation method for high-density, motion-robust 3D sensing that uses two synchronized cameras and back projection to achieve unambiguous line indexing, enabling real-time dense 3D imaging.

Contribution

The paper introduces a novel multi-line triangulation approach with dual cameras and back projection for unambiguous line indexing in high-density 3D sensing.

Findings

Achieves high data density in 3D measurements

Maintains high lateral resolution without line encoding

Enables real-time dense 3D scene acquisition

Abstract

We introduce a novel concept for motion robust optical 3D-sensing. The concept is based on multi-line triangulation. The aim is to evaluate a large number of projected lines (high data density) in a large measurement volume with high precision. Implementing all those three attributes at the same time allows for the "perfect" real-time 3D movie camera (our long term goal). The key problem towards this goal is ambiguous line indexing: we will demonstrate that the necessary information for unique line indexing can be acquired by two synchronized cameras and a back projection scheme. The introduced concept preserves high lateral resolution, since the lines are as narrow as the sampling theorem allows, no spatial bandwidth is consumed by encoding of the lines. In principle, the distance uncertainty is only limited by shot noise and coherent noise. The concept can be also advantageously implemented with a hand-guided sensor and real-time registration, for a complete and dense 3D-acquisition of complicated scenes.