A low cost 3D shape measurement method based on a strip shifting pattern

We present a simple, low cost but fast 3D shape measurement method. There is no limitation on the object's material and texture. We use a projector to project a strip shifting pattern on the object, and a digital camera to record videos of the scene. The distortion of the strip shadow on the object is used to get the object's 3D information. A novel space-time edge finding method is introduced to position the shadow edge accurately. This edge finding method overcomes the effect of inter-reflection and high light. Using this space-time information, we can calculate the pixels' 3D coordinates. To get the 3D shape of an object with black texture, we improve the black strip pattern to a 3-color strip pattern. The bad data are filtered by a post-processing 3D filter, which makes full use of the neighborhoods' geometric constraints and the view point constraint. Meanwhile, our measurement method is fast, regardless of the complexity of the shape.