Single-shot 3D reconstruction imaging approach based on polarization properties of reflection lights

It is well known that three-dimensional (3D) imaging has inherent advantages than two-dimensional (2D) imaging. However, the existing 3D imaging methods are limited by expensive instruments and/or complex systems. And previous researches have shown that, owing to the fact that there exists a functional but determined relationship between the polarization information of light reflected from a target and the surface normal of it, the shape information of a 3D target can be obtained by measuring and analyzing the polarization properties of the reflected lights. Indeed, 3D reconstruction imaging method based on light polarization has shown great potential in 3D imaging applications due to its advantages of high reconstruction accuracy and simple detection equipment involved. Note that, in the process of reconstructing the 3D shape of an object based on light polarization info nation, there always exists an inherent ambiguity problem, i.e., the azimuth angle of surface nounal will experience a 180 degrees jump at a position where the zenith angle is minimum. To solve this problem, we propose a new method to find those positions by sorting zenith angles corresponding to all pixels in the same row of the image. It is found that the 3D shape of an object can be constructed efficiently from its single polarized 2D image captured by using a polarimetric camera working under a snapshot imaging mode. We verify the effectiveness of this approach for different materials and different distances. Besides, the physical principle of this imaging approach is introduced in detail.