Laser-Video Scanner Calibration without the use of a frame store

Abstract We present a new calibration method for a structured light surface scanner. The new method uses a model-based calibration, accounting for laser stripe and translation stage alignment and the internal and external camera parameters. The inclusion of non-linear radial distortion in the camera model gives an improvement in the calibration accuracy over a linear model. The method has been designed for laser-video scanner systems that use hardware-based measurement of the illuminated line position rather than a frame store. Standard camera-based calibration techniques cannot be used for such systems, however the new method is also applicable to systems that use software-based stripe segmentation.