Blazer: Laser Scanning Simulation using Physically Based Rendering

TL;DR

This paper introduces Blazer, an open-source virtual line laser scanner that uses physically based rendering to generate realistic synthetic data, aiding algorithm development and machine learning training for industrial applications.

Contribution

Blazer is the first publicly available simulation tool for synthetic line laser data using physically based rendering, enhancing research and development in this area.

Findings

Produces realistic synthetic line laser data

Facilitates development of new algorithms

Supports training of machine learning models

Abstract

Line laser scanners are a sub-type of structured light 3D scanners that are relatively common devices to find within the industrial setting, typically in the context of assembly, process control, and welding. Despite its extensive use, scanning of some materials remain a difficult or even impossible task without additional pre-processing. For instance, materials which are shiny, or transparent. In this paper, we present a Blazer, a virtual line laser scanner that, combined with physically based rendering, produces synthetic data with a realistic light-matter interaction, and hence realistic appearance. This makes it eligible for the use as a tool in the development of novel algorithms, and in particular as a source of synthetic data for training of machine learning models. Similar systems exist for synthetic RGB-D data generation, but to our knowledge this the first publicly available implementation for synthetic line laser data. We release this implementation under an open-source license to aid further research on line laser scanners.