Three-dimensional shape reconstruction by active rangefinder

A new type of rangefinder is proposed, and a method for 3-D object shape reconstruction is described. The proposed rangefinder is compact and light and consists of a charge-coupled device camera, a galvano mirror, and a semiconductor laser. A slit-ray from the laser is scanned by the mirror and patterns of light are made by temporal switching of the laser. Range maps are obtained by the space encoded technique. A 512/spl times/256 range map is captured within 0.3 s. The rangefinder is installed at a tip of a robot manipulator, and takes range maps from various directions. Experimental results are described for range map integration and 3-D shape reconstruction.<
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