Vision system for fast 3-D model reconstruction

A desktop vision system is presented for complete 3-D model reconstruction. It is fast (3-D reconstruction in under 20 min), low cost (uses a commercially available digital camera and a rotation stage), and accurate (about 1 part in 500 in the working range). Partial 3-D shapes and texture information are acquired from multiple viewing directions using rotational stereo and shape-from-focus (SFF). The resulting range images are registered to a common coordinate system, and a surface representation is created for each range image. The resulting surfaces are integrated using an algorithm named region of construction. Unlike previous approaches, the region of construction algorithm directly exploits the structure of the raw range images. The algorithm determines regions in the range images corresponding to nonredundant surfaces that can be stitched along the boundaries to construct a complete 3-D surface model. The algorithm is computationally efficient and less sensitive to registration error. It also has the ability to construct complete 3-D models of complex objects with holes. A textured 3-D model is obtained by mapping texture information onto the complete surface model representing the 3-D shape. Experimental results for several real objects are presented.