Color 3D reverse engineering

Abstract This paper presents a principle and a method of color 3D laser scanning measurement, based on the fundamental of monochrome 3D measurement study. A new color 3D measurement model was derived, and a rapid calibrating method to measure the system parameters was proposed—the optical plane equation calibrating method. A calibrating drone was made. This paper also advances an auto-merging method for multi-frame, i.e. several frames of measured color 3D digital images are merged quickly according to their curvature characteristics and RGB information, in order to accomplish the complete color 3D digital model of the object. The system can be broadly used in the fields of product design, mold manufacture, multi-media, game development, animation, medical engineering, antique digitization, etc.