Improving precision of laser line detection in 3D range scanning systems

Nowadays lasers in the measurement industry are widely used. The accuracy of optical rangefinders, which detect a laser line directly from a taken frame, lies in precise laser line detection. Unfortunately, during the measurement process some laser line reflections can occur, laser colored objects are present on the scene or segmented laser line is too wide due to the laser saturation effect. These mentioned phenomena have influence on the measurement precision. It is possible to suppress these effects partially by checking the laser line width, but these points are missing in final measurement results. This paper describes a detailed analysis of segmented laser line components for elimination these phenomena, and the final distinguishing, which parts of a segmented laser line are used in measurement process. The paper also includes a comparison with a centroid method, which was used for a laser line center estimation.