Unified calibration technique and its applications in optical triangular profilometry

A unified calibration technique based on ray tracing for optical triangular profilometry is presented. The proposed technique based on the inherent geometric relation between depth and a distorted signal is capable of speedy and accurate measurement without the determination of geometric parameters. The technique can also reduce calibration error caused by the lens distortion of the projector and the camera owing to the reasonable assumption that mapping in a small local area is a linear transformation and the coefficients of the Linear transformation may be varied in different local areas. Three classical systems of triangular profilometry, spot inspection, a single-line system, and a projection-grating system, are discussed and demonstrated by experiment. (C) 1999 Optical Society of America. OCIS codes: 050.5080, 080.0080, 100.0100, 120.2830, 150.6910.