Designing Projection Patterns for 3D Structured-Light Sensors

Structured-light (SL) sensing techniques have been emerging as a popular non-contact optical method for 3D surface profiling of complex objects in manufacturing inspection applications. The measured object is illuminated with sinusoidal phase-shifted projection patterns that are deformed based on the 3D surface profile of the object. To-date, no methodology exists to determine the number of multiple fringe patterns needed in order to improve the measurement accuracy of an SL sensory system. In this paper, we present a novel design methodology that encompasses a detailed procedure for designing the projection patterns in order to minimize system noise and provide accurate 3D measurements. Experiments are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed methodology.