Calibration, parameter estimation, and accuracy enhancement of a four-dimensional imager camera turntable system

The four-dimensional imager (4DI) system, a real-time three-dimensional (3- D) imager, is a laser range data sensing system for making continuous geome tric measurements of 3-D surfaces. We concentrate on the objective of impro ving the resolution and accuracy of this system using a camera-turntable ar rangement. A fast and inexpensive method to capture dense range data for 36 0-deg viewing of an object is provided. After the system calibration proced ure and parameter estimation operations, the method to improve the data res olution by object rotation is derived. By oversampling the object surface a nd then using a 3-D smoothing and resampling operation, the accuracy of the data can be improved while maintaining a given spatial resolution. The met hod of removing the low credibility data points is also discussed, (C) 2000 society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers. [S0091-3286(00)01901-2 ].