Novel method for structured light system calibration

System calibration, which usually involves complicated and time-consuming procedures, is crucial for any 3-D shape measurement system. In this work, a novel systematic method is proposed for accurate and quick calibration of a 3-D shape measurement system we developed based on a structured light technique. The key concept is to enable the projector to "capture" images like a camera, thus making the calibration of a projector the same as that of a camera. With this new concept, the calibration of structured light systems becomes essentially the same as the calibration of traditional stereovision systems, which is well established. The calibration method is fast, robust, and accurate. It significantly simplifies the calibration and recalibration procedures of structured light systems. This work describes the principle of the proposed method and presents some experimental results that demonstrate its performance. (c) 2006 Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers.