A HAND-HELD THREE DIMENSIONAL SCANNER

EFFICIENT ACQUISITION OF 3-D SURFACE COORDINATES WOULD HAVE OBVIOUS UTILITY IN MACHINE VISION APPLICATIONS SUCH AS METROLOGY FOR QUALITY CONTROL, OBSTACLE DETECTION FOR MOTION CONTROL, AND TARGET LOCATION FOR DOCKING. YET THERE IS NO UBIQUITOUS METHOD FOR 3-D DIGITIZING. EXTANT TECHNOLOGIES SUFFER FROM A VARIETY OF SHORT-COMMINGS INCLUDING NEAR-FIELD BLINDNESS, CUMBERSOME CALIBRATION SCHEMES, LIMITED RESOLUTION AND DATA RATES, WEIGHT AND SCALE PENALTIES, AND HIGH COST. RESEARCHERS HAVE DEVELOPED A NEW METHOD FOR RANGE FINDING, BASED ON DIFFRACTION, TO DEVELOP A NEW CLASS OF 3-D IMAGE ACQUISITION DEVICES. THESE ARE EFFECTIVE ALTERNATIVES TO AVAILABLE TECHNOLOGIES IN RANGES FROM TENS OF MICRONS TO METERS.