Vision system for fast 3-D model reconstruction

A desktop vision system is presented for complete 3-D model reconstruction. It is fast (3-D reconstruction in under 20 min), low cost (uses a commercially available digital camera and a rotation stage), and accurate (about 1 part in 500 in the working range). Partial 3-D shapes and texture information are acquired from multiple viewing directions us- ing rotational stereo and shape-from-focus (SFF). The resulting range images are registered to a common coordinate system, and a surface representation is created for each range image. The resulting surfaces are integrated using an algorithm named region of construction. Unlike previous approaches, the region of construction algorithm directly ex- ploits the structure of the raw range images. The algorithm determines regions in the range images corresponding to nonredundant surfaces that can be stitched along the boundaries to construct a complete 3-D surface model. The algorithm is computationally efficient and less sensi- tive to registration error. It also has the ability to construct complete 3-D models of complex objects with holes. A textured 3-D model is obtained by mapping texture information onto the complete surface model repre- senting the 3-D shape. Experimental results for several real objects are presented. © 2004 Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers.