SCANNING APPARATUS AND METHODS

摘要

An arrangement for acquiring the 3D shape of an object (O) comprises a monocular (Figure 9) or a stereoscopic (Figure 8) digital camera arrangement optionally provided with an inertial sensor (11) which indicates the position and/or orientation of the camera(s) in relation to the object either to facilitate the derivation of 3D information from overlapping images (in the former case) or the combination of 3D data sets (in the latter case). In a variant utilising a single freely movable camera (Figures 10, 13 and 14) the inertial sensor is dispensed with or used only to determine relative rotation, and at least the translation of the camera relative to the object (O, O') is determined by tracking a network of points (a, b, c; a', b', c') in the image (I). In other embodiments (Figures 3, 4 and 6) an image processor utilises converging epipolar lines (EPa to EPd) to constrain a search for correlated regions of the images or a projected fractal pattern (Figures 15 and 15A) whose correlated regions (P, P') can be identified from their identical topology in both images.