New Inexpensive 3D Camera Works Outdoors & Captures High Quality Images
A team of engineers from Northwestern’s McCormick School of Engineering has built a really fast 3D capture camera that works in all environments with equal aplomb. It so happens that Microsoft's Kinect for Xbox faces several limitations including inability to perform well outdoors. Ever since the software for 3D capture has been made available by Microsoft, it has been integrated in various applications robotics & navigation. However, users who have loved how Kinect's 3D camera which let users think past joysticks and get a immersive experience while playing games, have been noticing that it generates lower quality images.
The engineering research team recently presented a paper titled “MC3D: Motion Contrast 3D Scanning" at the IEEE Conference on Computational Photography. They started where Kinect left off. The 1st & 2nd gen Kinect projects light patterns that are sensed & processed for estimation of scene depth at each pixel on the sensor. Even if this technique works fast, the precision is lesser as compared to the costly single-point scanners which use laser for scanning points across the complete scene or object.
Drawing inspiration from the human eye, the research team used the single-point scanning method to scan only those parts of the scenes that have been modified. This method makes the entire process really fast and more efficient than existing solutions.
Aptly described in the following video put together by the engineers behind this project, the team tackled the problem of 3D cameras not working as intended under sunlight, as it overpowers the projected light patterns. To achieve this, they gave the Motion Contrast 3-D scanner the ability to sense under a much brighter effect than ambient light.
The applications of such a fast 3D camera are immense as they can be used in the field of augmented reality, bioinformatics as well as manufacturing automation (motorized wheelchair). In fact, they have already won the Google Faculty Research Award for integration of their 3D scanning technology onto an autonomous vehicle. Isn't that really something?
Let us know your thoughts about the new fast 3D camera in comments below.
Source: <a href="https://www.mccormick.northwestern.edu/news/articles/2015/04/team-develops-faster-higher-quality-camera.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Team Develops Faster, Higher Quality 3-D Camera | News | Northwestern Engineering</a>
The engineering research team recently presented a paper titled “MC3D: Motion Contrast 3D Scanning" at the IEEE Conference on Computational Photography. They started where Kinect left off. The 1st & 2nd gen Kinect projects light patterns that are sensed & processed for estimation of scene depth at each pixel on the sensor. Even if this technique works fast, the precision is lesser as compared to the costly single-point scanners which use laser for scanning points across the complete scene or object.
Drawing inspiration from the human eye, the research team used the single-point scanning method to scan only those parts of the scenes that have been modified. This method makes the entire process really fast and more efficient than existing solutions.
Aptly described in the following video put together by the engineers behind this project, the team tackled the problem of 3D cameras not working as intended under sunlight, as it overpowers the projected light patterns. To achieve this, they gave the Motion Contrast 3-D scanner the ability to sense under a much brighter effect than ambient light.
The applications of such a fast 3D camera are immense as they can be used in the field of augmented reality, bioinformatics as well as manufacturing automation (motorized wheelchair). In fact, they have already won the Google Faculty Research Award for integration of their 3D scanning technology onto an autonomous vehicle. Isn't that really something?
Let us know your thoughts about the new fast 3D camera in comments below.
Source: <a href="https://www.mccormick.northwestern.edu/news/articles/2015/04/team-develops-faster-higher-quality-camera.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Team Develops Faster, Higher Quality 3-D Camera | News | Northwestern Engineering</a>
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