A Desktop 3D Scanner Exploiting Rotation and Visual Rectification of Laser Profiles

We describe a low cost system for metric 3D scanning from uncalibrated images based on rotational kinematic constraints. The system is composed by a turntable, an offthe- shelf camera and a laser stripe illuminator. System operation is based on the construction of the virtual image of a surface of revolution (SOR), from which two imaged SOR cross-sections are obtained in an automatic way, and internal camera calibration is performed by exploiting the same object being scanned. Shape acquisition is finally obtained by laser profile rectification and collation. Experiments with real data are shown, providing an insight into both camera calibration and shape reconstruction performance. System accuracy appears to be adequate for desktop applications.