Abstract
In this paper experimental comparisons between two Time-of-Flight (ToF) cameras are reported in order to test their performance and to give some procedures for testing data delivered by this kind of technology. In particular, the SR-4000 camera by Mesa Imaging AG and the CamCube3.0 by PMD Technologies have been evaluated since they have good performances and are well known to researchers dealing with Time-of-Flight (ToF) cameras. After a brief overview of commercial ToF cameras available on the market and the main specifications of the tested devices, two topics are presented in this paper. First, the influence of camera warm-up on distance measurement is analyzed: a warm-up of 40 minutes is suggested to obtain the measurement stability, especially in the case of the CamCube3.0 camera, that exhibits distance measurement variations of several centimeters. Secondly, the variation of distance measurement precision variation over integration time is presented: distance measurement precisions of some millimeters are obtained in both cases. Finally, a comparison between the two cameras based on the experiments and some information about future work on evaluation of sunlight influence on distance measurements are reported.
Highlights
In the last few years, a new generation of active sensors has been developed, which allows the acquisition of 3D point clouds without any scanning mechanism and from just one point of view at video frame rates
Many terms have been used in the literature to indicate these devices, such as: Time-of-Flight (ToF) cameras, Range IMaging (RIM) cameras, 3D
In this paper experimental comparisons between the SR-4000 and CamCube3.0 cameras have been reported in order to evaluate their performance and to give some procedures for testing data from ToF
Summary
In the last few years, a new generation of active sensors has been developed, which allows the acquisition of 3D point clouds without any scanning mechanism and from just one point of view at video frame rates. There are two main approaches currently employed in ToF camera technology: one measures distance by means of direct measurement of the runtime of a travelled light pulse, using for instance arrays of Single-Photon Avalanche Diodes (SPADs) [1,2] or an optical shutter technology [3]; the other method uses amplitude modulated light and obtains distance information by measuring the phase shift between a reference signal and the reflected signal [4] Such technology is possible because of the miniaturization of semiconductor technology and the evolution of CCD/CMOS processes that can be implemented independently for each pixel. The column “Measurement accuracy/repeatability” in Table 1 contains heterogeneous information since the camera manufacturers adopt different terms and conditions for this information It is worth noting the flexibility (and low cost) of the DS311 sensor from SoftKinetic [19] will probably influence the whole market of ToF sensors in the near future.
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