摘要 |
<p>: A three dimensional imaging system operating in accordance with the known active triangulation method employs a laser beam that is projected onto an area of a surface the profile of which is to be examined. A beam reflected from such area is received in a position sensitive detector. With synchronised scanning of the projected and detected beams by a system of mirrors, the detected position in the detector remains unchanged when the surface under examination is a flat reference plane, changing only as a measure of the degree of deviation of each examined area from such reference plane in a direction Z. The system is characterised by this basic scanning being carried out in such a way that the beams are scanned in a direction X lying in the beam plane, i.e. the plane defined by the beams, and by a further simultaneous and synchronous scanning that takes place in a direction Y. The directions X, Y and Z are all mutually perpendicular. The system has the advantage over prior systems of enabling surface profiling by means of a device that is compact, has a large field of view and can be arranged to have extremely rapid operation, i.e. a small fraction of a second to record a full image. While this speed of operation enables the system to determine the three dimensional shape of moving articles it has the advantage that it is not dependent on movement of the article to achieve full scanning.</p> |