CardEye: a 3D trinocular active vision system

CardEye is an experimental, trinocular, 3D active vision system. Our goal is to create a flexible, precise tool for active vision research. The system uses an agile trinocular vision head mounted on a robotic arm. It has five degrees of freedom: pan, tilt, roll, vergence and variable baseline in addition to the automated zoom and focus of the lenses. It utilizes an active lighting device to assist in the surface reconstruction process. In this paper we describe the architecture of the system together with its functionality.