3D measurement technologies for computer animation

Abstract

This paper surveys 3D measurement technologies for computer animation and considers unsolved problems on this subject. 3D measurement technologies are actually very important for converting various 3D objects in the real world to 3D models in the virtual world for computer animation. Current 3D measurement technologies have been developed mainly for measuring objects in industrial or scientific fields, such as factory automation or remote sensing. Consequently most 3D measurement systems are not necessarily suitable to measure various objects including human bodies directly. Medical equipment like X-ray CT and MRI are not handy tools. It is interesting to reconsider the remaining problems today for better 3D measurement in the future. This paper first surveys the current 3D measurement technologies ranging from the most basic feature based method to various types of rangefinders, then considers the remaining problems for ideal 3D measurement technologies for computer animation.