"Flying Triangulation" - a new optical 3D sensor enabling the acquisition of surfaces by freehand motion

In order to obtain complete 3D surface information of an object it is often necessary to acquire many partial 3D views. For this purpose, the sensor has to be moved (e.g. for sculptures, rooms). In many other cases a motion of the object relative to the sensor is unintended but inevitable (e.g. for medical purposes). Nearly all existing optical 3D sensors either lack an easy handling or require a standstill during the acquisition of a single partial 3D view. This makes such measurements elaborate or even impossible. We demonstrate an optical 3D measurement system that overcomes the mentioned difficulties. It combines a simple (single-shot) sensor and sophisticated algorithms. A series of sparse 3D views is acquired while the handheld sensor moves freely around the object. In order to get a dense 3D model of the surface the views are aligned by specially developed algorithms. In this paper we will present this new 3D sensor and show some measurement examples.