More Like this

1. Semi-Global Matching Assisted Absolute Phase Unwrapping

   https://doi.org/10.3390/s23010411  

   Liao, Yi-Hong ; Zhang, Song ( January 2023 , Sensors)

   Measuring speed is a critical factor to reduce motion artifacts for dynamic scene capture. Phase-shifting methods have the advantage of providing high-accuracy and dense 3D point clouds, but the phase unwrapping process affects the measurement speed. This paper presents an absolute phase unwrapping method capable of using only three speckle-embedded phase-shifted patterns for high-speed three-dimensional (3D) shape measurement on a single-camera, single-projector structured light system. The proposed method obtains the wrapped phase of the object from the speckle-embedded three-step phase-shifted patterns. Next, it utilizes the Semi-Global Matching (SGM) algorithm to establish the coarse correspondence between the image of the object with the embedded speckle pattern and the pre-obtained image of a flat surface with the same embedded speckle pattern. Then, a computational framework uses the coarse correspondence information to determine the fringe order pixel by pixel. The experimental results demonstrated that the proposed method can achieve high-speed and high-quality 3D measurements of complex scenes.

    

   more » « less
2. ALPACA: A fast and accurate computer vision approach for automated landmarking of three‐dimensional biological structures

   https://doi.org/10.1111/2041-210X.13689  

   Porto, Arthur ; Rolfe, Sara ; Maga, A. Murat ( August 2021 , Methods in Ecology and Evolution)

   Landmark‐based geometric morphometrics has emerged as an essential discipline for the quantitative analysis of size and shape in ecology and evolution. With the ever‐increasing density of digitized landmarks, the possible development of a fully automated method of landmark placement has attracted considerable attention. Despite the recent progress in image registration techniques, which could provide a pathway to automation, three‐dimensional (3D) morphometric data are still mainly gathered by trained experts. For the most part, the large infrastructure requirements necessary to perform image‐based registration, together with its system specificity and its overall speed, have prevented its wide dissemination.

   Here, we propose and implement a general and lightweight point cloud‐based approach to automatically collect high‐dimensional landmark data in 3D surfaces (Automated Landmarking through Point cloud Alignment and Correspondence Analysis). Our framework possesses several advantages compared with image‐based approaches. First, it presents comparable landmarking accuracy, despite relying on a single, random reference specimen and much sparser sampling of the structure's surface. Second, it can be efficiently run on consumer‐grade personal computers. Finally, it is general and can be applied at the intraspecific level to any biological structure of interest, regardless of whether anatomical atlases are available.

   Our validation procedures indicate that the method can recover intraspecific patterns of morphological variation that are largely comparable to those obtained by manual digitization, indicating that the use of an automated landmarking approach should not result in different conclusions regarding the nature of multivariate patterns of morphological variation.

   The proposed point cloud‐based approach has the potential to increase the scale and reproducibility of morphometrics research. To allow ALPACA to be used out‐of‐the‐box by users with no prior programming experience, we implemented it as a SlicerMorph module. SlicerMorph is an extension that enables geometric morphometrics data collection and 3D specimen analysis within the open‐source 3D Slicer biomedical visualization ecosystem. We expect that convenient access to this platform will make ALPACA broadly applicable within ecology and evolution.

    

   more » « less
3. Phase- shifted 3D Imaging of Rotating Milling/Drilling tools

   Guo, Xiangyu ; Lee, ChaBum ( October 2020 , American Society for Precision Engineering)

   null (Ed.)

   Drilling and milling operations are material removal processes involved in everyday conventional productions, especially in the high-speed metal cutting industry. The monitoring of tool information (wear, dynamic behavior, deformation, etc.) is essential to guarantee the success of product fabrication. Many methods have been applied to monitor the cutting tools from the information of cutting force, spindle motor current, vibration, as well as sound acoustic emission. However, those methods are indirect and sensitive to environmental noises. Here, the in-process imaging technique that can capture the cutting tool information while cutting the metal was studied. As machinists judge whether a tool is worn-out by the naked eye, utilizing the vision system can directly present the performance of the machine tools. We proposed a phase shifted strobo-stereoscopic method (Figure 1) for three-dimensional (3D) imaging. The stroboscopic instrument is usually applied for the measurement of fast-moving objects. The operation principle is as follows: when synchronizing the frequency of the light source illumination and the motion of object, the object appears to be stationary. The motion frequency of the target is transferring from the count information of the encoder signals from the working rotary spindle. If small differences are added to the frequency, the object appears to be slowly moving or rotating. This effect can be working as the source for the phase-shifting; with this phase information, the target can be whole-view 3D reconstructed by 360 degrees. The stereoscopic technique is embedded with two CCD cameras capturing images that are located bilateral symmetrically in regard to the target. The 3D scene is reconstructed by the location information of the same object points from both the left and right images. In the proposed system, an air spindle was used to secure the motion accuracy and drilling/milling speed. As shown in Figure 2, two CCDs with 10X objective lenses were installed on a linear rail with rotary stages to capture the machine tool bit raw picture for further 3D reconstruction. The overall measurement process was summarized in the flow chart (Figure 3). As the count number of encoder signals is related to the rotary speed, the input speed (unit of RPM) was set as the reference signal to control the frequency (f0) of the illumination of the LED. When the frequency was matched with the reference signal, both CCDs started to gather the pictures. With the mismatched frequency (Δf) information, a sequence of images was gathered under the phase-shifted process for a whole-view 3D reconstruction. The study in this paper was based on a 3/8’’ drilling tool performance monitoring. This paper presents the principle of the phase-shifted strobe-stereoscopic 3D imaging process. A hardware set-up is introduced, , as well as the 3D imaging algorithm. The reconstructed image analysis under different working speeds is discussed, the reconstruction resolution included. The uncertainty of the imaging process and the built-up system are also analyzed. As the input signal is the working speed, no other information from other sources is required. This proposed method can be applied as an on-machine or even in-process metrology. With the direct method of the 3D imaging machine vision system, it can directly offer the machine tool surface and fatigue information. This presented method can supplement the blank for determining the performance status of the machine tools, which further guarantees the fabrication process. 

   more » « less
4. Geometric Deep Learning for Shape Correspondence in Mass Customization by Three-Dimensional Printing

   https://doi.org/doi.org/10.1115/1.4046746  

   Huang, Jida ; Sun, Hongyue ; Kwok, Tsz-Ho ; Zhou, Chi ; Xu, Wenyao ( June 2020 , Journal of manufacturing science and engineering)

   Many industries, such as human-centric product manufacturing, are calling for mass customization with personalized products. One key enabler of mass customization is 3D printing, which makes flexible design and manufacturing possible. However, the personalized designs bring challenges for the shape matching and analysis, owing to the high complexity and shape variations. Traditional shape matching methods are limited to spatial alignment and finding a transformation matrix for two shapes, which cannot determine a vertex-to-vertex or feature-to-feature correlation between the two shapes. Hence, such a method cannot measure the deformation of the shape and interested features directly. To measure the deformations widely seen in the mass customization paradigm and address the issues of alignment methods in shape matching, we identify the geometry matching of deformed shapes as a correspondence problem. The problem is challenging due to the huge solution space and nonlinear complexity, which is difficult for conventional optimization methods to solve. According to the observation that the well-established massive databases provide the correspondence results of the treated teeth models, a learning-based method is proposed for the shape correspondence problem. Specifically, a state-of-the-art geometric deep learning method is used to learn the correspondence of a set of collected deformed shapes. Through learning the deformations of the models, the underlying variations of the shapes are extracted and used for finding the vertex-to-vertex mapping among these shapes. We demonstrate the application of the proposed approach in the orthodontics industry, and the experimental results show that the proposed method can predict correspondence fast and accurate, also robust to extreme cases. Furthermore, the proposed method is favorably suitable for deformed shape analysis in mass customization enabled by 3D printing. 

   more » « less
5. Shape From Sky: Polarimetric Normal Recovery Under the Sky

   Ichikawa, T. ( June 2021 , IEEE Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition)

   null (Ed.)

   The sky exhibits a unique spatial polarization pattern by scattering the unpolarized sun light. Just like insects use this unique angular pattern to navigate, we use it to map pixels to directions on the sky. That is, we show that the unique polarization pattern encoded in the polarimetric appearance of an object captured under the sky can be decoded to reveal the surface normal at each pixel. We derive a polarimetric reflection model of a diffuse plus mirror surface lit by the sun and a clear sky. This model is used to recover the per-pixel surface normal of an object from a single polarimetric image or from multiple polarimetric images captured under the sky at different times of the day. We experimentally evaluate the accuracy of our shape-from-sky method on a number of real objects of different surface compositions. The results clearly show that this passive approach to fine-geometry recovery that fully leverages the unique illumination made by nature is a viable option for 3D sensing. With the advent of quad-Bayer polarization chips, we believe the implications of our method span a wide range of domains. 

   more » « less