Use of LCD Panel for Calibrating Structured-Light-Based Range Sensing System

• Published in: IEEE transactions on instrumentation and measurement Vol. 57; no. 11; pp. 2623 - 2630
• Main Authors: Zhan Song, Chung, R.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York IEEE 01.11.2008; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: Calibration; Cameras; Design engineering; Instrumentation; Instruments; Laser sintering; Liquid crystal displays; liquid-crystal display (LCD) panel; Panels; projector-and-camera system; Sensing devices; Shape; structured light system; Surface reconstruction; Surface texture; Three dimensional displays; liquid-crystal display (LCD) panel; Calibration; structured light system; projector-and-camera system
• ISSN: 0018-9456; 1557-9662
• DOI: 10.1109/TIM.2008.925016

Calibration is a crucial step in structured-light-based range sensing device. The step involves the determination of the intrinsic parameters of both the camera and the projector that constitute the device and the extrinsic parameters between the two instruments. The traditional solution requires the use of an external calibration object with an accurately measured pattern printed on it. This paper presents a calibration design that makes use of a liquid-crystal display (LCD) panel as the calibration object. The LCD panel's planarity is of industrial grade and is thus dependable. The pattern shown on the LCD panel is programmable and is thus convenient to produce in high precision. We show that, with the design, the projector-and-camera system parameters can be calibrated with far fewer images with much higher accuracy. Extensive experiments are shown to illustrate the dramatic improvement in performance.