Low-complexity handheld 3-D scanner using a laser pointer

This paper proposes a portable 3-D scanning technique using a laser pointer. 3-D scanning is a process that acquires surface information from an 3-D object. There have been many studies on 3-D scanning. The methods of 3-D scanning are summarized into some methods based on multiple cameras, line lasers, and light pattern recognition. However, those methods has major disadvantages of their high cost and big size for portable appliances such as smartphones and digital cameras. In this paper, a 3-D scanning system using a low-cost and small-sized laser pointer are introduced to solve the problems. To do so, we propose a 3-D localization technique for a laser point. The proposed method consists of two main parts; one is a fast recognition of input images to obtain 2-D information of a point laser and the other is calibration based on the least-squares technique to calculate the 3-D information overall. To verified our method, we carry out experiments. It is proved that the proposed method provides 3-D surface information although the system is constructed by extremely low-cost parts such a chip laser pointer, compared to existing methods. Also, the method can be implemented in small-size; thus, it is enough to use in mobile devices such as smartphones. Copyright © The Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers.