Simplification of high order polynomial calibration model for fringe projection profilometry

Abstract

In fringe projection profilometry systems, high order polynomial calibration models can be employed to improve the accuracy. However, it is not stable to fit a high order polynomial model with least-squares algorithms. In this paper, a novel method is presented to analyze the significance of each polynomial term and simplify the high order polynomial calibration model. Term significance is evaluated by comparing the loading vector elements of the first few principal components which are obtained with the principal component analysis, and trivial terms are identified and neglected from the high order polynomial calibration model. As a result, the high order model is simplified with significant improvement of computation stability and little loss of reconstruction accuracy. An interesting finding is that some terms of 0 and 1st order, as well as some high order terms related to the image direction that is vertical to the phase change direction, are trivial terms for this specific problem. Experimental results are shown to validate of the proposed method.