Complete calibration of a structured light stripe vision sensor through planar target of unknown orientations

Abstract

Structured light 3D vision inspection is a commonly used method for various 3D surface profiling techniques. In this paper, the mathematical model of the structured light stripe vision sensor is established. We propose a flexible new approach to easily determine all primitive parameters of a structured light stripe vision sensor. It is well suited for use without specialized knowledge of 3D geometry. The technique only requires the sensor to observe a planar target shown at a few (at least two) different orientations. Either the sensor or the planar target can be freely moved. The motion need not be known. A novel approach is proposed to generate sufficient non-collinear control points for structured light stripe vision sensor calibration. Real data has been used to test the proposed technique, and very good result has been obtained. Compared with classical techniques, which use expensive equipment such as two or three orthogonal planes, the proposed technique is easy to use and flexible. It advances structured light vision one step from laboratory environments to real engineering 3D metrology applications.